There’s No Place Like Home!
This week’s Torah reading presents a unique phenomenon. The special reading presented on Tisha B’av, this past Sunday, also appears in the regular reading for this special Shabbat, famously known as Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. On the surface, this appears odd. How can the reading appropriate to our day of national mourning also contribute to our sense of comfort? Let’s investigate.
All this happens in Chapter Four of Devarim. This famous section is called KI TOLID BANIM U’B’NEI BANIM (When you will have begotten children and grandchildren, Devarim 4:25-40). This portion begins by predicting that the Jews will sin in the Holy Land (specifically idolatry) and, as a result, ‘the Eternal will scatter you among the peoples’ (verse 27). Historically, being turned out of one’s homeland results in the destruction of that nation as an historic force. But our prescient section predicts: And you will search there, and find the Eternal, your God…(verse 29).
Unlike other nations our exile will not be our demise. For when we seek and find God in these scattered locations, God will grant us forgiveness, ‘for God is compassionate’ (verse 31). Then we will return to the Promised Land, ‘in order to long remain in the Land that God, the Eternal, gave to us for all time’ (verse 40).
There you have it: 3,000 years of Jewish history in 16 verses! I guess that the easiest way of answering my initial question about why we read the same section on our day of tragedy and our Shabbat of Comfort is relatively simple: Part One is for Tisha B’Av and Part Two is for Shabbat NACHAMU.
Theoretically, we could end right here. Question asked; question answered. The two parts work together: GALUT and Return (both in the TESHUVA sense and the physical Zionistic sense). But there’s much more to it.
I think that the critical phrase is also the transitional phrase: U’VIKASHTEM M’SHAM (and you [plural] will seek from there, and you [singular] will find the Eternal, your God. We’re discussing a mass movement of multitudes searching for ‘truth’ or God, but the ‘answer’ to be found is unique to each individual seeker. The Maor V’Shemesh compares this phenomenon to a vast throng davening together, but each silent Shmoneh Esreh prayer is a unique effort on the part of every individual present.
I’m sure most of you, dear readers, have found yourselves in a mass prayer event. Maybe at the KOTEL, or perhaps at a rally in a major city. I can remember davening with thousands outside the UN or in front of the US Capitol building. It’s inspiring to be among thousands pouring out their souls to God, but my thoughts, hopes and prayers are very much my own. The two vantage points are critical to our verse.
A SHMONE ESRE, silent devotion in a multitude is an amazing paradox. My innermost thoughts and aspirations expressed within a teeming multitude. Sometimes one can feel the most alone when surrounded by a crowd.
But this idea just leads us to the real paradox: The verse promises finding God in GALUT, exile. Huh! We couldn’t connect with God in the Holy Land, but expect to accomplish that cherished goal in the cold, cruel Diaspora. Well, yeah.
The promise of Eretz Yisrael has been a mixed bag for eons. Why do we want our own homeland? Safety, prosperity, nationalism, power, and many more desires. In the Holy Homeland, it’s easy to take the connection and communion with God for granted. When that relationship is taken for granted it withers and weakens.
But when sensing existential loneliness in the GALUT, the need for connection can jumpstart the renewal of our relationship to God. ‘From THERE’, distant from the home we love, we are motivated to L’VAKESH, to seek and search for meaning and God.
Rav Soloveitchik explains the quest:
What is our request? What are we searching for? Not for wealth, but to be close to God. We want to be as near to You as possible. That is the task of the individual and the community, to search for God. Everyone wants to feel the hand of God on his shoulder. HIMATZEI LANU, let Yourself be found, BIVAKASHATENU, BAKASHA in the sense of search. In our ceaseless search, let Yourself be found. We want Your nearness, Your proximity. We want to know that whenever we search for You, You will be found. We pray that it will be easy for us to find You. Very easy…However, the verse says, ‘When you search for God with all your heart and all your soul’…The search for Hashem must be total. Everything must be involved in this search. And, the truth is that whoever searches for Him sincerely will find Him. It is only a question of how long it will take.
The Malbim makes the point that geography isn’t the point at all: ‘From there’ means from this pressure and pain. From that demeaned status you will seek and search. And God will accept that effort, but only if it is ‘with all your heart and all your soul’. For this goal is achieved only through soul suffering (MESIRAT NEFESH).
Oh, so that this lonely status can happen anywhere, even in Eretz Yisrael. It’s a state of mind and soul, not a physical location. So, after the soul wrenching experience of Tisha B’Av and the litany of TZAROT and destruction, we can find NECHAMA in God’s promise: Seek Me from your place (status, mental state), and you will find Me!
This week’s message is about orientation. We may have lost our way, and our values. But God encourages us to recalibrate our direction, and find our lodestone in God. God is our refuge and Home!
