SERMON  -   August 16, 2024  

Shabbat Nachamu

This is Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort.    It is called this because the Haftarah for this Shabbat is from the prophet Isaiah, and begins “Nachamu Nachamu Ami”   “Comfort, O Comfort my people”

It comes after the three weeks of mourning that culminate in Tisha b’Av, the day of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem in both 586 BCE and 70AD on which we read the truly painful poetry of the book of Lamentations.

This week, we turn from letting ourselves sit in sadness and loss, to a theme of comfort that leads us toward the High Holy Days and the comfort of forgiveness. 

This has been quite a year of trauma, loss, shock, and disorientation after October 7, and the truly scary rise of antisemitism around the world, and particularly for many of us, the rise of that hatred among those we considered allies. 

I was listening to an interview with a Palestinian man who lives on the West Bank, but who studied and worked in the high-tech industry in Israel.  On October 7, after checking to see if his Israeli friends were safe, he posted a short post on Facebook saying he was sad and without words for the horrors of Hamas and said that terrorism has no place. 

Because of the war, he is living again in the West Bank and fears for his life.  He also shared that within two days of posting on Facebook, 500 Palestinian family and friends blocked him.  Several called him a ‘traitor’ that he said means his life is in danger. 

I think to a lesser degree, many of us have felt that sense of loss, of danger, and of betrayal.  Many have lost friends.  Some spouses almost can’t speak to one another, and children have turned on their parents.  So it is good that we are starting the turn toward comfort and toward the reflection and forgiveness that comes with the Holy Days.

That interview  was so painful for many reasons – the brilliant young man’s life being turned upside down and threatened, the terrible things he went through just to study in Israel such as multiple check-points to get back and forth from school so that it took 5 hours each way; or the fact that people in Tel Aviv repeatedly refused to rent apartments to him because he is Palestinian and had no references in Israel.  He also shared that until he went to study for a Masters in South Korea, was the first time he learned in school about the Holocaust, and about Israel’s history and its accomplishments. – they didn’t teach it in Palestinian schools.    He lived next to Israel his whole life and knew almost nothing of the country.

But that interview also included two moments that I found very comforting.

1.    The man shared that when he was trying to get into colleges outside of Israel, he had to know English, so his father, a manual laborer, asked the Jewish Israeli family he was working for if they had any English books he might take home to his son.   They gave him one and he brought it home to his son -   the book changed his life.   It was Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning.   He said it taught him that when you can’t control your situation, what you can control is your attitude and reaction.

2.   He also shared that later, when he was studying in Tel Aviv University, he ran out of money to pay his tuition, so they expelled him.  Desperate, back in his small village in the West Bank, he decided to write emails to hundreds of people and post on Facebook asking if anyone might be able to help him with the money.   No one responded, until he got this one email that said, “Let’s have coffee.”   He did, and this Israel man on the spot offered to pay his tuition, work with Tel Aviv University to readmit him, and even invited him to live with him in Tel Aviv.   That man, it turns out, is a famous Israeli musician some of you may have heard of - David Broza, one of my favorites and someone I listened to over and over again when I was living in Jerusalem in the 1980’s when he was just becoming a star. 

Those two things gave me comfort after hearing what was this mans own story of trauma and dislocation due to October7. 

I want to ask you on this Shabbat of Comfort, was has given you comfort this year.  Turn to those near you and share.

I want to close by reading that Haftarah from Isaiah.  Isaiah always gives me comfort, because his writing is so clear and beautiful.  Isaiah is to Hebrew what Shakespeare is to English – he took a local language and turned it into art.   Isaiah is writing around the same time as Plato, Confucius, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, and he too is focused on ethics and what gives life meaning and value.  Isaiah also reminds us that nothing is forever, and this too shall pass, and things will be better if we have faith.

ISAIAH 40

Comfort, oh comfort My people,
Says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
And declare to her
That her term of service is over,
That her iniquity is expiated;
For she has received at GOD’s hand
Double for all her sins.

A voice rings out:
“Clear in the desert
A road for GOD!
Level in the wilderness
A highway for our God!

Let every valley be raised,
Every hill and mount made low.
Let the rugged ground become level
And the ridges become a plain.

The Presence of GOD shall appear,
And all flesh, as one, shall behold—
For GOD has spoken.”

A voice rings out: “Proclaim!”
Another asks, “What shall I proclaim?”
“All flesh is grass,
All its goodness like flowers of the field:

Grass withers, flowers fade
When GOD’s breath blows on them.
Indeed, people are but grass:

Grass withers, flowers fade—
But the word of our God is always fulfilled!”

Ascend a lofty mountain,
O herald of joy to Zion;
Raise your voice with power,
O herald of joy to Jerusalem—
Raise it, have no fear;
Announce to the cities of Judah:
Behold your God!

Behold, my Sovereign GOD comes in might—
Whose arm wins triumph;
See, [God] has brought along the reward,
The recompense is in view.

Like a shepherd who pastures the flock,
[God] gathers up the lambs
And carries them in the divine bosom,
While gently driving the mother sheep.

Who measured the waters with a hand’s hollow,
And gauged the skies with a span,
And meted earth’s dust with a measure,
And weighed the mountains with a scale
And the hills with a balance?

Who has plumbed the mind of GOD?
Can anyone disclose God’s plan?

Whom did [God] consult, and who bestowed understanding,
Providing guidance in the way of right?
Who guided [God] in knowledge
And made known the path of wisdom?

The nations are but a drop in a bucket,
Reckoned as dust on a balance;
The very coastlands are lifted like motes.

Lebanon is not fuel enough,
Nor its beasts enough for sacrifice.

All nations are as naught in God’s sight,
Who accounts them as less than nothing.

To whom, then, can you liken God,
With what form can you make comparison?

The idol? A woodworker shaped it,
And a smith overlaid it with gold,
Forging links of silver.

As a gift, someone chooses the mulberry—
A wood that does not rot—
Then seeks a skillful woodworker
To make a firm idol,
That will not topple.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Have you not been told
From the very first?
Have you not discerned
How the earth was founded?

It is [God] who is enthroned above the vault of the earth,
So that its inhabitants seem as grasshoppers;
Who spread out the skies like a cloth,
Stretched them out like a tent to dwell in—

Bringing potentates to naught,
Making rulers of the earth as nothing.

Hardly are they planted,
Hardly are they sown,
Hardly has their stem
Taken root in earth,
When [God] blows upon them and they dry up,
And the storm bears them off like straw.

To whom, then, can you liken Me,
To whom can I be compared?
—says the Holy One.

Lift high your eyes and see:
Who created these?
The One who sends out their host by count,
Who calls them each by name:
Given such great might and vast power,
Not a single one fails to appear.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
Why declare, O Israel,
“My way is hid from GOD,
My cause is ignored by my God”?

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The ETERNAL is God from of old,
Creator of the earth from end to end,
Who never grows faint or weary,
Whose wisdom cannot be fathomed—

Who gives strength to the weary,
Fresh vigor to the spent.

Youths may grow faint and weary,
And young men stumble and fall;

But they who trust in GOD shall renew their strength
As eagles grow new plumes:
They shall run and not grow weary,
They shall march and not grow faint.