Making Sense of the Sedra: Va’eschanan
Comfort in conversation
Va’etchanan is universally read on the Shabbat following Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av, a fast day commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and general communal tragedies since). This Shabbat was given a unique name in medieval literature – Shabbat Nachamu, which means the Shabbat of comfort. Broadly speaking, this marks the point where we rise from the ashes and mourning of Tisha B’Av and begin the process of renewal that culminates with the new year at Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. In fact, a number of early codifiers would mark the occasion with special festive meals, songs and poetic additions to the regular Shabbat service.
But these impressive themes are outwardly at odds with the opening thrust of our sedra, which describes Moses’ desperate pleas as he begs God to allow him entry into the land of Israel. Here’s the rub: God says no. Stacked up against notions of comfort and rejoicing following the sombre mood of the Three Weeks (the period between the fast of Tammuz and the fast of Av), this response is perplexing and if anything, quite unsettling. God’s denial of Moses’ request, and the heartbreak that followed, would seemingly belong more naturally with the gloom and dejection of the preceding weeks of mourning, not the joyful path of renewal stretching onward to the horizon of the new year. How are we to reconcile this paradox?
Perhaps the answer lies with Tisha B’Av itself. In reading the Book of Lamentations, composed by the prophet Jeremiah as he stood witness to Israel’s spiritual decay and destruction, we encounter a verse that is chilling: “Even when I cry out and plead, God has shut out my prayer.” (Lamentations 3:8) Hard truths cut both ways. After generations of rampant indifference to God, that same indifference was eventually reflected back. Make no mistake, at first glance this excerpt from Lamentations is a direct echo of Moses’ own apparently ignored pleas and prayers to enter the land of Israel.
With one crucial difference. And it is this difference that sheds light on what a process of comfort and renewal truly looks like.
As the destruction of the Temple loomed, Israel’s prayers weren’t answered with a ‘no’. Tragically, they weren’t answered at all. All pleas, entreaties and supplications were met with a deafening silence. This idea is so heart-breaking that it was memorialised in latter Tisha B’Av custom: we omit the stanza ‘Tiskabel’ (‘accept our prayers…’) from the Kaddish, thereby acknowledging the fact that the once miraculous bond between the Jewish people and God had deteriorated almost beyond repair.
Almost.
You see, by contrast Moses’ prayers were not met with deafening silence. They were answered, albeit not with the answer he so longed to hear. The answer was: “No – you will not enter the land. But do not despair, command Joshua, strengthen and encourage him – for he will cross over [the Jordan] ahead of the people.”
To paraphrase the writer and philosopher Elie Wiesel, the opposite of love is not hate, nor anger, nor hearing things you don’t necessarily want to hear. The opposite of love is indifference. This is the cold, terrifying paralysis of Tisha B’Av. What follows is a slight thaw. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ice begins to melt, and we begin talking again. Those first few conversations may be painful beyond measure. We may hear things that are excruciatingly difficult to hear. It may take us a while to absorb and process those things. But there is dialogue. There is a renewed shared desire to solve the problem together. Through this, the relationship begins to heal. This dialogue represents the first baby steps down a path to a brighter future; a road at whose end is Yom Kippur – Tisha B’Av’s polar opposite – a day when God ‘descends’ to Earth to be among us, and we once again share a warm and loving embrace.
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