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Shabbat Nachamu
Given by Debby Berlyne on August 1, 2009 (11 Av 5769
)
Giving and Receiving Comfort
Today’s Torah reading, parshat Va-Ethannan, begins with Moses reporting on his pleadings with God to let him enter the Promised Land. But God only lets Moses see the land and Moses dies before he can enter it.
It’s a sad story. Moses, who has been through so much to lead his people to the Promised Land, is not permitted to realize the dream he has had for decades. Although we probably can’t relate directly to the experience of not being allowed to enter the Land of Israel after wandering for years in the desert, we can certainly relate to the feelings of disappointment and sorrow that Moses must have experienced.
I wonder if Moses derived any comfort from being able to at least look at the land, or from knowing that he had succeeded in his quest to bring the children of Israel to their homeland. I also wonder if the children of Israel sympathized with Moses’s situation and offered him any comfort.
Comfort is something we all need from time to time and, hopefully, something we all offer when those around us need it. And comfort is the theme of today’s Haftarah reading. In fact, today’s Shabbat, Shabbat Nachamu, is the Shabbat of comfort because the first words in the Haftarah are “Nachamu, nachamu ami,” which Eitz Hayim translates as “Comfort, oh comfort my people.” I’m going to focus my discussion today on this notion of comfort.
According to Eitz Hayim, the Haftarah begins with prophecies of consolation to the Judeans who had been exiled to Babylon and to those who were mourning the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophet comforts the people by telling them that God will renew the children of Israel and their homeland.
This Haftarah is the first of seven Haftarot of consolation that we read on the seven Shabbatot between Tisha B’Av and Rosh Hashanah. This is an appropriate time to focus on consolation because we have just ended three weeks of mourning that ended with Tisha B’Av, which marks a number of sad events in the history of the Jewish people.
There are good reasons why Tisha b’Av and the haftarot of consolation fall when they do. But during the middle of summer in the northern hemisphere, many of us find it hard to focus on sadness and the need for comfort at a time when the weather can be beautiful (I say “can be” because, of course, in Washington the heat can be unbearable!), many of us can spend more time outdoors than at other times of the year, and lots of people take a vacation.
But the placement of these periods of mourning and then consolation remind me of what often happens in life—sad things happen in the midst of happy times, and our families and friends might need comforting at any time, regardless of whatever else is going on in our lives or theirs. Some of you might remember that four years ago, as my family was finalizing plans for my daughter Miriam’s bat mizvah, my mother-in-law, Sarah Bachman (known as Chuckie), died of cancer less than two weeks before the event. Her death didn’t happen at a time that seemed appropriate to us (and was certainly not a time that she would have chosen) but life is like that.
We were fortunate then that, as members of this congregation, we received an outpouring of support from our community. The rabbi and cantor, as well as several friends, attended Chuckie’s funeral. The shiva was well attended, and friends stepped in to help with some last-minute preparations for the bat mitzvah that we couldn’t attend to because our planning had been interrupted. While the comfort we received from family and friends couldn’t take away the loss our family experienced, it helped us get through a very difficult time.
People respond very differently to loss and disappointment. In today’s Torah reading, Moses has apparently been able to move beyond his personal disappointment and continue his mission of leading the Jewish people until the end of his life. Although he might have resented God for denying him this one wish, Moses continued to carry on his job of instructing the children of Israel on God’s laws and rules.
Moses seems to have accepted God’s decision not to let him enter the Promised Land and moved on. Some people can do that. They can accept that something they wanted isn’t going to happen and that this means they need to change their lives to incorporate this new reality. Once Moses accepts that he is not going to get something he wanted badly, he is able to focus on what he can do, which is serve as a role model for the Jewish people. He can show them how to apply God’s teachings so that they can carry on when he is gone.
Binny Freedman, writing for Isralight, teaches us that even when a terrible thing happens, like losing the opportunity to fulfill one’s lifelong wish or losing our holiest place, the world is still “filled with meaning.” Moses’s response to his situation reminds us that even when we lose someone or something of great importance, the world still has many wonderful things to offer us. Once we are ready to move on, we can regain the ability to appreciate the world’s many bounties.
Rabbi Jocee Hudson of Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, CA, points out that although Moses never gets the opportunity to enter the land, he does have an opportunity to see it and this is God’s way to helping Moses understand that he has succeeded in his journey. In spite of his disappointment, Moses must have been thrilled to look all around him and see the land and realize where he has led his people.
Jacob responded very differently than Moses to his apparent loss of his son Joseph. According to Breishit, when Jacob’s sons showed their father Joseph’s bloodied coat, Jacob tore his clothing, put on sackcloth, and mourned his son for days. The Torah says, “All his sons and daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted." This indicates that even after the proper time to mourn ended, Joseph refused to be comforted and to rebuild his life.
Today’s Haftarah is speaking to Jacob and to others who respond in similar by saying (as Rabbi Deborah Wechsler of Chizuk Amuno Congregation in Baltimore puts it), “comfort and accept the comfort that is offered to you, you have served your term of grief.” The prophet is not denying that the loss happened or that it was important but is saying that the loss must not define the people’s future. We are not supposed to weep all the time for Jerusalem, the temple, or the way of life of our people when the Temple existed. We are only supposed to grieve on special days, such as Tisha B’Av.
Comfort from others helps us heal after a loss. So it’s incumbent on all of us to offer comfort when we have the opportunity. When we see that someone is in pain, we should be kind and sensitive to them. We need to listen to them and to do our best to offer words that will make them feel better. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, of Park Avenue Synagogue, writes:
“For Jews, there is an inextricable connection between the notion of kedusha - holiness and nehama - comfort. The sacred, as it were, is not merely found by reaching up into the heavens. The sacred is found by comforting another in need, by individual and attentive acts of kindness, by caring and by compassion. For Jews, God is not just in the details; for Jews, God is found in our ability to let other people’s needs enter into our own circle of concern, not merely sympathy, not merely empathy, but actually understanding your own humanity to be defined by way of another person created in God’s image.”
Comforting other people isn’t easy. We don’t always know what to say. My father died when I was in high school and many of my friends offered support, often awkwardly, in whatever way they could. Some didn’t know what to tell me when they saw me, so they sent cards instead. Unfortunately, just a couple of years later when a college friend’s father died, I remember not talking to her immediately because, even though I had been through the same thing so recently, I didn’t know what to say.
There is no single right way to comfort someone else, as we all know. What works for one person might not work for someone else, and people are often more receptive to comfort at some times than at others. But there are a few approaches that can be helpful.
One thing that we can do is remind the bereaved person that, just as the Jewish calendar has moments of grief and moments of hope, so too life has ups and downs. We just finished grieving for the many tragedies that our people have suffered throughout history and the Jewish calendar, including today’s special Shabbat, remind us that we can look forward to Rosh Hashanah, with its themes of hope and renewal, in just a few weeks. Rosh Hashanah gives us an opportunity to think about the things that are good in our lives and to remember that the world will continue to offer us opportunities for joy. And Rosh Hashanah will be followed by Yom Kippur, when we will all have a chance for a fresh start.
The Haftarah tells us, “Let every valley be raised, Every hill and mount made low. Let the rugged ground become level And the ridges become a plain.” This reminds us that life is a cycle and that, often, the saddest times in life are followed by periods of joy. This passage also helps us remember that things change over time. Although I don’t think it’s exactly true that “time heals all wounds,” I do believe that many wounds diminish simply through the passage of time.
Another important thing to do when we comfort someone else to empathize, to show understanding of what they are going through. Often, simply knowing that someone else is sharing our sorrow reduces the load. Maybe the sorrow doesn’t become smaller, but it can become a little easier to bear.
One approach that works well for me and, hopefully for my family, when I am trying to comfort someone is focusing on what I am doing instead of on what I am saying. For example, my sister and her husband recently separated after 30 years of marriage. I have no personal experience with separation and I’ve never talked someone through this situation. But I realized that even if I didn’t know what to say, just talking to her would help. So I called her often in the first few months. She told me that even though she didn’t always feel like talking when I called, she was always glad that I called because she knew I cared. I also visited her recently (she lives in Saskatchewan—look it up on a map!).
Our tradition of sitting shiva points to the importance of being there when someone has experienced a loss. As far as I know, tradition instructs us only to say “May God comfort you among all mourners of Zion and Jerusalem." We aren’t told what else we should say to the bereaved person. And that’s probably because simply being there is enough. People who have lost a loved one usually find it very comforting to be surrounded by their community. So if you ever hesitate to go to a shiva house because you don’t know what to say to the person, remember that what you say is probably a lot less important to the person than your presence. I don’t remember what people said to me at the shivahs for my parents or my mother-in-law, but I do remember seeing people’s faces and feeling comforted by their company.
Another thing we can do is to take on some of the person’s routine tasks. I know very well that the Tikvat Israel Bereavement Committee does this by providing meals for people who have lost a loved one. Our Bikkur Cholim Committee provides meals, runs errands, and visits people who are dealing with an illness or other life challenge.
When we experience a loss ourselves, today’s Haftarah reminds us that we need to accept comfort, unlike our ancestor Jacob. If someone calls or sends an email in an attempt to help us, even if we think we aren’t ready to be helped, we are supposed to listen. We also need to forgive ourselves. That’s not so easy. We all tend to find someone to blame when a bad thing happens, even though many things happen without anyone being at fault. To help us with this challenging task, the Haftarah tells us “For she has received at the hand of the Lord double for all her sins” According to Simon Jacobson of the Meaningful Life Center, this means that God gives us a double serving of strength to “pick up the pieces and rebuild [our lives.]”
I remember that when my mother died, sadly almost exactly a year before my mother-in-law died, I blamed myself for not being kind enough to her when she was alive. I’ve talked to others who have blamed themselves after a loved one’s death for not saying the right thing to the person who died or for not getting the right medical treatment for that person. We need to avoid dwelling on these feelings because they can prevent us from moving on with our lives. I was ultimately able to get over my feelings of guilt by reminding myself that I had shown my mother that I loved her by visiting her every few weeks (and making sure that my children saw her several times) in her last year, even though she lived several hours away. So I guess that, in a way, I was able to comfort myself and accept that it was time to move on and I could stop blaming myself.
Just as it’s not easy to comfort someone else, it’s not easy to accept comfort or to move from sorrow to hope. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin tells a cute story about the power of hope:
A Hassidic story is told of two disciples of a rebbe who would visit their master during the festival of Sukkot. Each year they stopped off at an inn owned by a couple who were childless. One year the husband asked the disciples to petition their rebbe to pray that his wife become pregnant. Of course, they agreed to do so. During their visit, they observed the wife walking around the grounds of the inn pushing an expensive new baby carriage in anticipation of her impending conception.
The following year, they again set out to visit the rebbe and arrived at the inn just in time for the circumcision of the innkeepers' eight-day-old son. They were treated as honored guests, one serving as kvater (godfather) and the other as sandek (the one who holds the baby). But the sandek had tears in his eyes during the ceremony and insisted on a private audience with the rebbe the next day.
"It isn't fair," remonstrated the disciple. "The rebbe doesn't even know the innkeeper, who has been married for only 10 years. I, the trusted disciple of the rebbe all my life, have been married for 15 years without the joy of a child, despite the rebbe's prayers on my behalf." The rebbe took the Hassid's hands in his own and looked deeply into his eyes: "But in all these 15 years that you have been asking me to pray for you, did you ever purchase a baby carriage?"
Rabbi Riskin interprets the message of our Haftarah as a command that we are to have faith, to walk around with an empty baby carriage because we know that God will provide for our needs in the future.
So, in conclusion, I hope we’ve all recognized that times of loss and tragedy happen to everyone, and they happen at times that aren’t convenient. When someone we know experiences such a loss, we need to provide whatever kind of comfort we can offer—whether that is saying something that will make the person feel better, helping them out by taking on some of their daily chores, or simply taking the time to call or visit. And when something bad happens to us, of course, we need to take the time to mourn. But we also need to accept the comfort that others offer and to prepare to resume our lives once our time of mourning is over. None of this is easy, but I hope you find it comforting!
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