All Flesh is Grass

Is there consolation after trauma?

The haftorah this week—Nachamu, the first of seven prophetic readings of consolation after the Ninth of Av, starts to answer that question. Isaiah calls out to the people of Israel, but words do not read like comfort, and are met with silence, unanswered.

‘All flesh is grass.’

Isaiah presents the human being as fleeting—subject to time and death. ‘The grass withers; the flower fades.’

The breath of the Eternal does not revive—it scorches. This is not a case-study in theodicy—what the poet John Milton called ‘justifying the ways of God to man.’

But Isaiah does not explain evil. He simply declares: devastation and future glory—all of it—comes from the ‘mouth of the Lord.’ His ‘word’ speaks as both punishment and promise. The same utterance that levels the land also carries the possibility of return.

Still—for those who watched the Temple burn, for those who survived the camps, for those shattered by the tragedies of the past two years—where is the consolation?

According to rabbinic tradition, Isaiah’s words were never meant for those who lived through the destruction. They are spoken into history, carried forward for those still trying to live with losses they cannot explain.

For the immediate survivors, it is too early for relationship.

Words fail and strain under the weight of grief. To speak too soon is not comfort—it is desecration.

The Risk of Poetry

And yet, God commands Isaiah: “Speak to their hearts.” But what can be said?

Even the prophet falters: ‘A voice says, “call out!” And I said, “What shall I call?”‘ Isaiah does not know what to say, he calls out nonetheless. But the wound is too fresh. Isaiah’s consolation are spoken into a void.

God does not tell Isaiah to explain. He does not say, “Tell them why it happened.” There is no justification.

Fortunately, Isaiah was a poet, not a philosopher. He doesn’t offer answers. His divine poetry attempts connection, speaking to the heart through poetry.

Twice, the prophet rebukes his audience a question: ‘To whom will you liken God?’ The implication is clear: the God is incomparable, beyond likeness. No image can represent the Holy One.

And yet—Isaiah answers with a simile: ‘Like a shepherd, He tends His flock…’ The prophet speaks to hearts of the people through poetry.

Theology cautions against likeness, but poetry risks it. Each image offers only one facet of the Divine. And that is why poetry is the proper medium for the infinite: it never settles for a single vision. Through its shifting perspectives, poetry offers not a complete idea of God, but a truer one—always partial, always inadequate, and yet always aspiring to the impossible.

So Isaiah compares God to a shepherd tending His flock. Gathering the lambs, guiding them with care, He gives special attention to the nursing ewes. The same breath that withered the grass now draws near. The same voice that devastated now leads the vulnerable. The mothers of the unborn are now led forward into a future through God’s gentle care.

The prophet’s poetry draws us in. We may not be convinced, but through the act of reading, we enter into relationship with the prophet’s words. When we ‘raise our eyes,’ as Isaiah urges, we begin to read beyond the surface of the shepherd and the flock. The image opens, revealing a connection between God and Israel that cannot be stated directly, only encountered through the movement of the image itself.

Still, the people to whom Isaiah speaks do not respond. This is the beginning of relationship, but Isaiah respects our silence, even our skepticism.

Inconsolable?

In this first of seven haftarot of consolation, Isaiah doesn’t explain or persuade—he summons us with poetry.

‘Comfort, comfort My people, says your God’ is not an explanation, but an assertion of relationship.  My people. Your God. Even in silence, the relationship is named. But the prophet does not presume that we are healed.

It’s much too early for that.

Isaiah knew that the first part of consolation is the acknowledgment that we are inconsolable.

From there, we move on.