08/16/2024
Va’etchanan/Shabbat Nachamu
This Shabbat is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort. Moshe tries to comfort the people by reminding them to stay true to the words of God. He reiterates the Ten Commandments and introduces the words of the Shema, which becomes the iconic prayer of the Jewish people.
In the haftorah the prophet Yishayahu also offers words of comfort. He says that Jerusalem’s punishment is over and that joy will return. We just completed three weeks of preparing for a Tisha B’Av that seemed more immediate than almost any in my memory. A day that Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, in his work Alei Shur, describes as a Moed Shel Richuk—a holiday of distance. And so it seems hard to switch to joy and comfort especially when there is so much pain and suffering.
Moshe tells the people to hold on to both the law and God’s love as their twin pillars. He reassures them that if they are steadfast in their devotion God will be with them. Even if they do stray and are exiled, God will still love them and eventually be reunited with them. For Rabbi Akiva, three centuries later, that was true as well. In one story, told in Yevamot 121a, he is shipwrecked and attributes his survival to holding onto a daf, or plank, from the ship. But daf also refers to a page of Talmud. Rabbi Akiva survived challenging times during the Roman occupation of Israel by holding onto the law.
Rabbi Akiva also held onto the love of God, sure as he was of God’s love of the Jewish people even during difficult times. Another story about him comes in Makkot 24b. He and some of his colleagues were walking in Jerusalem after the destruction of the 2nd Temple in 70 CE. They saw a fox emerge from where the Holy of Holies had stood. The others cried at the sad state of affairs. But Rabbi Akiva laughed, because he saw that fox as a sign that Yishayahu’s prophecies of destruction had come true and so too he was assured the prophecies of renewal would also. Although we are told in Menachot 29 that he died a horrible death at the hands of the Romans, the Talmud there tells us that he died with the words of the Shema, of his love of God, on his lips.
Let us each find our pillar or our daf that keeps us afloat.
Shabbat Shalom with love,
Rabba Claudia Marbach
