Comfort

Tisha B’Av is the saddest day of the Jewish year, the final and most stringent day of a three week fast. On this day we remember all the evil that has befallen us; the destruction of the first and second temples, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the start of World War I, the Holocaust. We remember the losses that touch us most closely, visiting cemeteries and grieving our own loved ones. On this day the Book of Eichach (Lamentations) is read aloud: “For these things I weep; my eye, yea my eye, sheds tears, for the comforter to restore my soul is removed from me; my children are desolate, for the enemy has prevailed.”

What a gift in this modern world, to have a time set apart each year to acknowledge that we are wounded, that all is not well, that we have lost things precious to us.  

But then each year, after the time of grieving, healing is promised. The first Shabbat after Tisha B’av is called Shabbat Nahamu, the “Sabbath of Consolation,” and it begins with this reading from Yeshayahu (Isaiah):

Comfort, comfort my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.

Many days in this life we will experience hurt, fear, and grief. On these days may we remember that after Tisha B’Av comes Shabbat Nahamu. We bring our cries to God and he hears us and replies, “Comfort, comfort my people.”