Vaetchanan
Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11
Isaiah 40:1-26
This Shabbat has a special name, “Shabbat Nachamu” (loosely, “Shabbat of Comfort”). It is so named for the opening words of the Haftarah reading, a teaching to comfort us after the tragedies remembered on the fast of the ninth of Av this past Thursday, Aug. 3. The ninth of Av is a day commemorating the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem as well as all tragedy and suffering throughout Jewish history.
In losing the Temples, we also lost a tangible connection to HaShem. When they stood, prophecy and the Divine Presence were readily perceived. It was all there to experience, and today we find it so badly missing. We look so hard to try to find and connect with God. This Shabbat, who or what will be the comfort for the loss of this closeness? Another ninth of Av has come and gone, and still no tangible presence!
A puzzling Talmudic passage (Berachot 8A): “Since the Temple was destroyed, all that HaShem has in this world is the 4 cubits of halachah [Jewish law].” What does this mean? What about faith and belief? What about Jewish philosophy? What about prayer and the meditative experience? Furthermore, how can a legal code be described in spatial terms and dimensions such as “cubits?”
The Midrash (Eichah Rabbah) tells a fascinating parable. It asks how Psalm 79 can begin with the words “A song of Assaf” and then talk about the destruction. Shouldn’t it be “a lament of Assaf”? The Midrash goes on to tell the story of a king who made a beautiful and decorated chuppah (wedding canopy) for the prince years in advance of his wedding. Son and father have a terrible falling out, and the father in anger tears the chuppah down and breaks the sticks.
The son’s teacher picks up a few of the broken reeds and begins to play them like a flute. People ask: “How can you play, when the king just destroyed his son’s chuppah?” The teacher answers that he is joyous, for the king poured out his anger on the chuppah and not on his son. So too, Assaf writes a “song” because HaShem directed frustration at our behavior on the rocks and wood of the Temple, and not on us. Thus ends the midrash.
Think about the implications. HaShem destroys the Temple, and we are left without that tangible link to HaShem. However, the relationship is not severed, and we survive. This leaves the Divine Presence intangible, but still accessible. But then how does one access it?
I have met many who consider Torah study a purely intellectual exercise, a discipline to be read. But it is so much more than that — it penetrates one’s being. If you have ever studied Torah, and I mean really studied Torah, then you know that you get up from that study a different person. It goes well beyond one’s head. It gets inside you, into your heart. It colors the way that you look at life and the world. It’s about insight and wisdom and meaning.
Looking back to the Talmud, note the words “four cubits of halachah.” Torah is described as the complete experience of space around the human being. After the destruction of the Temple, HaShem is found in Torah study, in that deep and enveloping experience.
This is where I find comfort this Shabbat, in the Torah reading of Vaetchanan. It comes every year after the ninth of Av, and in it we find it all: law in the Ten Commandments, faith and belief in the Shema, the uplifting verse about HaShem’s presence sung at the end of the prayer Aleinu, concepts from all over the theological map. It’s all there. The comfort is in the depth of the Torah that we see right after the ninth of Av.
There are many that offer rationalist arguments for faith. But for me right now, at this stage in life, a good portion of my faith comes from studying Torah. One can study all day for a whole lifetime and barely scratch the surface. If you haven’t tried it yet, there is a world of comfort and joy awaiting you.
Rabbi Judah Dardik is the spiritual leader at Oakland’s Beth Jacob. He can be reached at [email protected] .