Nachamu
nachamu ami “Comfort,
oh comfort, My people,”
yomar
Elohaychem ‘says your God’,
dabru
al-lev “speak
tenderly/ to the heart…” (Isaiah 40: 1-2).
These must
be some of the most powerful, the most poignant, the most – yes – tender,
heartfelt, words in the whole of prophetic literature. But who, one might ask, would
need to hear these words, these sentiments? Who would be needing such comfort,
such tenderness?
What state
of mind would we be in – of distress, or anxiety, or trauma - what kinds of
hurt would be enduring – of deprivation or loss or pain – to be in need of such
comfort, such tender-hearted care and attention?
The first
audience for these words, this poetic balm to the soul, was of course the
Hebrew people, in Babylonian exile, two and half millennia ago. But by the time
the rabbis decided to integrate this material into the annual cycle of readings
in the synagogue, more than half a millennium had passed, centuries in which
the need to offer comfort to the Jewish people, a people oppressed or in exile, had become a cyclical event.
And in the
1500 and more years since ‘Shabbat Nachamu’ became part of this Jewish calendar
of post-Tisha B’av readings [initiating
the seven weeks between the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple and
the New Year, with each week containing a prophetic reading of consolation and
hope] the need for comfort, the need to be spoken to with tender-hearted
concern, has rarely been redundant.
And even for
us, in our relative security and with our relative sense of well-being, even if
we don’t think that the Jewish people collectively need words of comfort and
tenderness at this point in history – and that’s an open question, but I’m
going to leave it aside right now – even if we distance ourselves from that
view of collective need, who amongst us as individuals don’t hear these
words “Comfort, oh comfort…speak tenderly to the heart” and feel a keening sense, an ache of
recognition, of some deep, maybe unspoken, sense of needing to receive comfort
in our own lives, for our own lives?
And maybe
that need for comfort – acknowledged or unacknowledged – is only more pressing
in these Covid times, I don’t know…
So let’s ask
a basic question: what is it that comforts us? How do we get comfort? Where
from? What from? This elusive and precious experience - comfort, consolation –
where do we find it?
Let’s start
with what’s fundamental. And maybe obvious. Isn’t one thing that comforts us
the knowledge, the experience, that we are loved? Whether that comes from
family, or friends, we want to feel that we are loved - and loveable. That comforts us.
This is closely
followed by the need to feel cared for – that too gives comfort. And then close
to that, we need to feel, I think, remembered: that can bring comfort as well. And close to that, we probably need to feel
well thought of - in terms of who we
are, what we are, our personal qualities, maybe our achievements too; we want to
know that we are valued : this can be a source of deep comfort. To know that
when people think about us – and when we think about ourselves as well – we can
say that the world is a little better for our being in it, that we tip the scales,
just a fraction, in the direction of life.
In many of
these things – feeling loved, cared for, remembered, thought about, thought
well of - we are dependent on others. And there’s a humility attached to
realising how dependent we are on others – family, friends, community - to
provide us with comfort. “Comfort, oh comfort, my
people”.
But of
course there are many other things that can offer us comfort, can speak
tenderly to our hearts. We may have a favourite piece of music, or a painting,
or a poem, or a story, or a garden, or a place in nature, or a memory, or a
piece of liturgy, or a memento – a stone, a blanket, a letter – that we
cherish, that offers comfort, that offers consolation, that speaks tenderly to
our souls. Some might say that God speaks through all these things. Some might
demur from that. It doesn’t matter in the end: our theology matters less than
our lived experience.
We all need
comfort. Nachamu. That’s what makes this text from Isaiah so powerful,
so pertinent in every age, and for all people, Jew and non-Jew alike. We all
need comfort. Nachamu.
So far so
good. This text speaks to us still. We can use it to think about what brings us
comfort - including our tradition, our heritage. But is there something else hidden in this text, something a bit more
subversive of this conventional reading? Not only do we all need comfort, to be
the recipients of comfort, but what this text reminds us – and this reminder is
encoded in the ambiguity of its poetry in the Hebrew, but you can get it in the
translation as well – what it also points to is that it is not only that we all
need comfort, but we ‘the people’ are also the addressees of the
sentence. “’Comfort, oh comfort, my people’, says your God” is also
addressed to the people - as a role, a task, a destiny even: they are the
ones who are to bring comfort, to others. Listen to it again: “Comfort,
comfort, my people…” – the prophet reminds the people that this is what they
are here to do, to do the comforting, and not only to be those who need
it.
We are
always, and understandably - whatever our historical or personal circumstances
- so much in need of comfort (wherever it comes from), that we have grown
accustomed to read this text through this prism (sanctioned by rabbinic tradition)
of a people’s need for comfort. But all the time this other dimension, this
other way of reading, has been implicit in the text: that we can be the bearers
of comfort for others, and that this is integral to what it means to be a
people, the Jewish people. It’s not just a need, nachamu – it’s also the
vision of our task, nachamu.
And maybe
reading it this way can offer another source of comfort for us: that God has
entrusted us, so to speak, with the capacity to do this work; and that the
double verb has a deeper meaning - that in bringing comfort to others, we are
ourselves comforted. We have a role, we have a value, we have a purpose. This
is our life: to receive comfort and to give comfort. And to move, dance, between
the two.
[based on
a sermon, given through Zoom, for Finchley Reform Synagogue, London on August 1st
2020 – Shabbat Nachamu]
