A few minutes ago, we heard chanted the fifth among shivah d’nehemah—the seven Haftorot of Consolation that follow Tisha B’Av and, in effect, connect it to Rosh Hashanah. As the Etz Hayim begins this series, it explains that these special haftorot—like the three preceding Tisha B’Av and another designated for Shabbat Shuvah—are in each case unrelated to the particular parsha. This had to be the case; for the rabbis who typically bind Torah and Haftarah pairs also proceeded in sequence through chapters 40-66 of the Book of Isaiah. And yet, I’d like to use today’s pairing of Parshat-Ki Tetzei and Isaiah chapter 54 to reflect on the whole idea of consolation—what it has meant to the Jewish People, what it means to us today, and how it compares to other modes of behaving and responding.
As it turns out, Parshat-Ki Tetzei contains 72 mitzvot, surpassing all others. For Nehama Leibowitz, that justifies taking the purpose of the mitzvot as the main theme of her commentary. She brings forward two somewhat different approaches: first, that the mitzvot lend grace and sanctity to our daily acts; and second, that they enable us to withstand temptations and struggle against our selfish passions. Looking at the parshah from the vantage point of the Haftarah, however, leads me to add a third purpose: to console us for what Hamlet calls “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
My Webster’s Dictionary defines consolation as “the alleviation of suffering, grief, and disappointment by comforting.” And, in turn, it defines alleviate as “to lessen, relieve, make lighter, mitigate, moderate, especially as applied to pain.” Stop and think about this constellation of verbs for a minute, as I did, and you will see why I summoned the image from Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Essentially, we need—and we offer others—consolation for the “bad things” that happen not just to “good people” but to all of us. It is in the nature of imperfect human life that—as David Hare’s political play on the Iraq war puts it, quoting Donald Rumsfeld—“stuff happens.” Of course, Hare aims to demonstrate what many of us know on our own: that much bad stuff could be avoided if we tried harder, were less selfish, worked together, and had better leadership. But at a certain point, even we optimistic Jews—who do not believe in Original Sin and do believe in Tikkun Olam—even we are forced to acknowledge that, at least until the Messiah comes, life contains much “suffering, grief, disappointment,” much “pain” that calls out for mitigation and relief.
However, consolation is surely not the first line of defense, the primary response to life’s difficulties. When you have a bad headache, you take Tylanol or its like; when you are diagnosed, has-v’shalom, with cancer, you seek chemotherapy, radiation, and/or surgery. When you lose your job, you are well advised to update your resume and seek a new one, as well as to alleviate economic distress through unemployment compensation. And yet, even with something external like losing a job, there may well be internal ramifications that cannot be so easily moderated even if you find a new job the next day. What if your boss had been a friend who suddenly turned on you? What if all your years of education and career preparation are revealed to have been in waste? What if your spouse and children and friends look at your in a different way, now that you are less successful?
Consolation enters, it seems, when the hard knock you’ve suffered is not so easily, or cannot by its very nature, be mitigated. The core situation for which we require consolation is loss—with death, the loss of life and often the loss of love, being the paradigmatic case. For the loss of a beloved partner or spouse, a parent, a good friend, or (again, has v’shalom) a child, there can be no compensation, no remedying action. If we are fortunate though, there can and will, in due course, be consolation—best rendered in Hebrew, as nechama. This is something that different people reach out for, or receive, in different ways; something that may well be built-into the structure of our earthly life just as surely as loss and suffering and disappointment seem to be. But even if it is in some sense built-in, consolation is not automatically available or accessed. To gain consolation seems to require openness or prior experience. To provide consolation calls for empathy and fullness of being. When loss and consolation meet, there we find grace, holiness and probably the highest level of beauty.
Let me return to the idea of mitzvot as a mode of consolation. It would take a series of devrai-Torah to categorize and reflect on the panoply of mitzvot in this parshah. So I will simply focus on the mitzvah which opens the parshah and later I will say a bit about the parshah’s concluding mitzvah, regarding Amalek. The opening commandment bears the Hebrew name mitzvat din Y’fat toar—the precept of the beautiful woman who is captured in war. Like many mitzvot dealing with women, this one’s basic concern seems to be the male response. So we have a soldier who is sufficiently attracted to a female captive that he wishes to take her as a wife or concubine, rather than a mere slave. The Torah text specifies that she must be given opportunity to renew herself physically and mourn her lost parents before being sexually available. Traditional commentary see this process as a tactical concession to the yetzer ha-rah of male lust or a strategy that will ideally render the woman less attractive in his eyes. The modern commentator Richard Elliott Friedman focuses on the way in which elements of this law—including how the woman is to be treated if the man tires of her— display extraordinary sensitivity to the humanity and feelings of the captured woman. For Jeffrey Tigay in the JPS Torah Commentary, the mitzvot of the y’fat toar displays respect for the personhood of the captive woman and the moral obligations created by initiating a sexual relationship with her; they recognizes and respect her grief.
During the thirty-day period of respect and restraint, one can even imagine certain additional acts of solicitude, beyond those concerning her physical being, on the part of the soldier-citizen returned home with his captive: he would to her gently as she begins to understand Hebrew, give her morsels of food as she grows used to the Israelite diet, or lay a blanket over her as she takes to her bed, weeping. In short, one can imagine him personally consoling her in indirect ways even as he grants her the space, physically and temporally, to console herself.
The generosity of spirit encouraged by the mitzvot regarding the beautiful woman who has been captured in war contrasts starkly to the final cluster of mitzvot derived from this parshah—those regarding the arch-ememy of Israel, Amalek. In a much-interpreted sentence, the Torah commands that once the Israelites are settled in the Land, they “blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven,” being sure not to forget to do this. For Sefer Ha-hinuch, based on Maimonides’ enumeration of the mitzvot, this includes the precept to eradiate the progeny of Amalek, male and female, young and old. Because the Amalakites attacked the journeying Israelites when they were famished and weary, this people who lacked “fear of God” deserve not nechamah—consolation based on compassion—but nekamah—revenge in recompense for the evil they did.
The contrast of generous nechamah to negative nekamah, in a way, stands embodied in the whole sequence of Haftorot surrounding Tisha B’Av , in reference to which I began this morning. That fast day, of course, commemorates death and destruction and loss. Its ritual practices, like those of personal mourning, honor the memory of what was lost in the destruction of the Temples and comfort the Jewish People for those loses. Leading up to the fast day are the three haftorot of admonition or chastisement, warning our ancestors of the evil that will come to pass if they continue with practices that violate God’s laws—as of course, according to the tradition, they did.
The destruction of the Temple, once it happens, is a given that calls for moral explanation. Assuming a just, rather than capricious, God, it must have come in recompense—that is, as a kind of revenge—for acts of idolatry and immorality by the Jewish People. But such an event also calls forth God’s rachmanut—God’s compassion—displayed in consoling Israel. Since the breach caused by Israel’s misdeeds was so great, only God’s own self is able to heal it and bring comfort to Jerusalem.
And so the first Haftarah of consolation opens with the lines that cause that Sabbath to be called Shabbat Nachamu: Nachamu, nachamu Ami, yomar Elochechem—“Comfort, oh comfort my people, says your God.” The people’s sins have been forgiven and their punishment is complete, probably reflecting the edit of Cyrus that permitted the exiled Judeans to return to Jerusalem. This, like the subsequent six haftorot, as Etz Hayim puts it, “reorients the people to Zion and announces the advent of God’s Presence—to confirm and guide the renewal of God’s people and their homeland.”
Today’s Haftarah amplifies tokens of assurance, celebrating the renewal of covenantal relationship in imagery based on loving human marriage. Our Torah portion contains many instances of marital and sexual breech and it emphasizes clear boundaries; in contrast and as consolation, the Haftarah repairs breeches and blurs boundaries. So it is that “He who made you will espouse you”: ki voalayich oohsayich —in an arresting image that merges parent and spouse, father and husband, creator and sustainer. So God calls back the “a wife forlorn and forsaken, . . . the wife of his youth.” And just as occurred after the Flood, God renounce revenge and vows to remain eternally loyal.
And yet, a strengthened relationship between Adonai and the Jewish People as well as the return to Zion once and then again— and in our time, yet again—cannot fully make up for or wash away the blood and dirt of destruction. Even a positive outcome does not make up for the negatives along the way. That’s why the haftorot are ones of consolation and comfort, not of compensation or reward. In a way, God consoles our ancestors for the pain of being conquered and exiled through physical restoration, but the primary consolation comes through loving attention.
And what of us today? In our national life as Americans and Jews; in our family lives and our personal lives; our lives at work and at school, at home and in the community. The beauties of nature and of art can make an important difference to people; without them, I for one would be lost. Without a doubt, being part of a close family, and a cohesive Jewish community like this one, can go a long way towards consoling us when things happen to rend the fabric of our lives. On a more general level, the satisfying and reassuring structure of Jewish life sustains us through its forms and the content of those forms; the mitzvot that each of us practice enlarge our perspective and brush us with holiness even when we are downtrodden. Feeling even a little in touch with God uplifts us.
And we each have our personal ways, often rooted in childhood, that we use to comfort ourselves and gain strength. For some people, a hot bath helps a lot; for others, going for a long walk. When I get very upset about something, it is hard for me to get over it before the next morning. Usually though, getting into bed—the location where I sought solace as a child through reading—is my best bet. I can be a hard person to comfort, even when I need it the most; John sometimes speaks of me as being in an “inconsolable state.” Perhaps giving this dvar-Torah will help me admit consolation into my life more readily, and I hope it will encourage each of you to let yourselves be consoled and to offer consolation to others.
Finally, Judaism sees Adonai as the pinnacle of consolation. It is God’s name throughout the world which was created according to God’s will that is, in the Kaddish, “beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world.” Let me close with a poem by Danny Siegel that flashed into my mind as I was writing this drash, consoling me somewhat for the confusing mix of ideas and texts that I had set out to make sense of. I hope it will help you in the same way and others: Psalm 17: You are a Consolation to Your Creatures.
O Lord,
You are a consolation to Your creatures,
for in moments of forgetting,
we but call to mind Your care,
and we are comforted.When we hope no more,
a pattern in the snow
reminds us of Your lovingkindness.Your dawns give us confidence
and sleep is a friend.Our sorrows dissipate
in the presence of an infant's smile
and the wise words of the old
revive our will-to-wish.Your hints are everywhere,
Your signals in the most remote of places
You are here,
and we fail words to say,"Mah Tov!"
How good our breath,
our rushing energies,
ours silences of love.