Facing Mortality with Moses on Shabbat Nachamu: Parshat Va’Etchanan

This Shabbat is Shabbat Nachamu—the Sabbath of Comfort—named for the opening words of the haftarah: “Comfort, O comfort My people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). It always falls on the Shabbat following Tisha B’Av, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, which commemorates the destruction of the Temples and other tragedies of our past. Shabbat Nachamu marks the beginning of the seven haftarot of consolation before the High Holidays.

When I asked my youngest daughter, whether she planned to go to a synagogue on Tisha B’Av, she replied, “Ima, I’ve been living Tisha B’Av the last two years.” Her words stayed with me. What comfort can we truly find this week, when the possibility of a resolution seems further away, the war grinds on, and the slow starvation of the remaining hostages continues?

This week’s parashah, Va’etchanan, begins with Moses pleading with God:

“Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land… But יהוה was wrathful with me… and said to me, ‘Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again!’” (Deuteronomy 3:25–26)

Moses, after leading the people for forty years, is told he will not enter the Promised Land. He climbs Mount Pisgah to gaze across the Jordan, to see—but not to experience—the fulfillment of his life’s mission. He is to pass the torch to Joshua, who will complete the journey.

On the occasion of my 82nd birthday—August 7—I find myself thinking about Moses, about the ache of unfinished business. I too, have my bucket list of things to see, to do, places to visit. I find myself living vicariously and seeing places through my children’s and grandchildren’s eyes, rather than actually travelling. In the past year I lost my husband and my sister, and grief has sharpened my awareness of mortality—and the sense that there is not enough time to do everything. I’m reminded of what the writer Paul Theroux observed upon turning 80:

“It is not the big number—eighty—that shocks me… but, rather, the banal image of an implacable hourglass, most of its sand heaped at the bottom… the last negligible pinch of grains sifting down, unstoppable…” (The New York Times, April 3, 2021).

At this age, death seems less an abstraction and more a constant presence. We lose friends, acquaintances, neighbors—some through age, others by illness, war, suicide, accidents, or violence.

As I age, Benjamin Franklin’s famous maxim— “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today”—grows more urgent as time passes too quickly (Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1748). When I was younger, I leaned more toward Mark Twain’s humorous saying: “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow” (The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894). But today, procrastination is a luxury we can’t afford—neither in our personal lives nor in our political leadership. Unfortunately, our leaders seem to be guided by Twain’s laziness rather than Franklin’s urgency. The Israeli government continues to defer painful decisions—postponing matters that should have been resolved not just tomorrow, but yesterday. These delays are not abstract; they are seeping into the lives of real people, in real time. And the decisions that may finally be made in the coming days are likely to have lasting—and deeply troubling—consequences.

It is the season of teshuvah—return, reflection, repair. In order to move forward, we have to look back. First, we must take full responsibility for the damage we have caused. It may be too late for our prime minister, because there are some things that cannot be fixed, such as the lasting damage done to the psyche of our children; the moral injury our soldiers are facing, the damage to the economy that we are enduring. All of this will continue to haunt this generation and possibly effect the next.  We cannot totally cleanse, wipe out our memories, reboot, as if were. We will not be able to demand of our victims that they forgive the perpetrators. From a religious perspective it seems to be one big chillul hashem, the desecration of god’s name. As has been recently said we are fast becoming a leper state.

This week we read again the Ten Commandments in Parshat Va’etchanan (Deut. 5). In this spirit, I suggest that we rewrite them holding up a mirror to both our ourselves, but mostly to our leadership:

Recognize you are not God. Stop worshipping the false idol of unlimited power. Your delusions of invincibility risk the wrath of generations. You are “visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations” because you think you are God and above the law.

Do not swear falsely that your decisions serve the nation, when they serve only your own political survival.

Do not desecrate the Sabbath. Our soldiers and citizens have sacrificed their peace, rest and lives for a war they did not choose.

Work six days. The Knesset should not recess while the country is in crisis.

Honor all parents. Support those who have lost children and who are protesting daily, rather than accusing them of undermining the war effort.

You are responsible for killings on both sides. The world sees, and justice will not sleep. Generations will indict you.

Put the nation before yourself. Equalize the burden. Condemn the radical fringe in your government. Act against homegrown extremist-terrorists

You may have stolen. Let the courts decide—but bribery is also theft. It is time to honor our “neighbors” who live in this country and stop closing your eyes to the ongoing crimes against them.

Do not bear false witness. Stop scapegoating your fellow citizens.

Do not covet. Don’t crave your neighbor’s olive vineyards and fields. Don’t build illegally on their territory or steal any of their animals. And prosecute those who do so!

In advance of this birthday, I considered a second bat mitzvah, as my husband did at age 83 (see here). But for me, raised Orthodox in the 1950s when bat mitzvahs were rare or nonexistent, the ritual itself feels less essential than the thought behind it–and I am reading the Torah portion this coming shabbat. .

Psalm 90 reminds us: “Teach us to count our days rightly, that we may obtain a wise heart” (Psalm 90:12)

And Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) offers both joy and warning:

“How sweet is the light, what a delight for the eyes to behold the sun. Even if a man lives many years, let him enjoy himself in all of them, remembering how many the days of darkness are going to be. The only future is nothingness!  O youth, enjoy yourself while you are young… but know that God will call you to account…” (Ecclesiastes 11:7–10)

So appreciate your vigor in the days of your youth, before those days of sorrow come and those years arrive of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;^… And the life breath returns to God Who bestowed it (Ecclesiastes 12:8).

We cannot erase trauma, nor can we demand forgiveness from those who have suffered. But perhaps comfort lies not in forgetting but in carrying memory with dignity, in seeking justice without vengeance, and in holding fast to hope even when it flickers.

May our leaders come to their senses before the war spreads further. And may we, in these shiv’ah d’nechamata—the seven weeks of comfort—find nechama (consolation) and menucha (rest).

Shabbat Shalom.