Malkie and I are very grateful for the outpouring of good wishes we received on the occasion of Chana and Lippy’s wedding last week. We look forward to reciprocating on your special occasions.
Generally speaking, the weekly Haftara is meant to directly reflect the themes of the weekly Parsha. The last ten weeks of the year are an exception to this rule. Those Haftaras are more connected to the calendar than to the Parsha. There are three that are read leading up to Tisha B’av, regarding the destruction and exile. Then there are seven that are read after Tisha B’av until Rosh Hashanah that are prophecies of comfort.
The medieval sage Rabbi David Avudraham wrote a commentary on our liturgical language and customs. He offers a fascinating insight into the sequence of the seven Haftaras of comfort, suggesting that the opening phrase of each one serves as a continuing dialogue between G-d and the Jewish people. Understanding the sequence, gives us a peak into the broader Jewish story that continues until this day.
It begins in the first Haftara with G-d dispatching the prophet to “comfort, you shall comfort My people.” The Jewish people, seeing that G-d is sending them comfort via a messenger rather than in person, reply with the second Haftara, “Zion said, ‘G‑d has forsaken me, my L‑rd has forgotten me.” The prophet then goes to report to back to G-d in the third Haftara that, “the afflicted, storm-tossed one, refuses to be consoled.” G-d’s rejoinder in the fourth Haftara is, “I, indeed I, am He who comforts you.” The next three Haftaras go on to expand on the loving messages that G-d has for His people, concluding with the seventh Haftara, “I will rejoice intensely with G‑d.”
This is our story. We experience challenges. Often, following those challenges we are offered a consolation prize. Do we accept that and move on, or do we insist that we want the real deal? At the risk of being “slightly” provocative, I want to apply this to our times. 85 years ago, our people experienced one of the most difficult challenges in our history, the Holocaust. Six million murdered. Countless others were scarred physically and emotionally. Generational trauma ensued. Following the Holocaust, G-d offered us two consolation prizes, a Jewish state in our ancestral homeland, and unprecedented tranquility and success in places like the USA.
Why do I call them consolation prizes? The State of Israel does not fulfill the prophecies of old. Israel is not fully sovereign and independent. She must constantly worry about what others think and say. She is under ongoing threat of attack. Israel is not a country that is conducted according to the way of the Torah. Most importantly, we do not have a Temple in Jerusalem, the full ingathering of the exiles, or peace from the attack of the nations of the world.
Regarding the tranquil and successful presence in the diaspora, we see developing before our own eyes how fragile and temporal that tranquility can be.
We need to insist, just as the storm-tossed afflicted one in the Haftara, that we will settle for nothing less than the complete and final redemption, the comfort that comes from Hashem Himself.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin