Shabbos Nachamu: Are You feeling Nechama?

Episode 3 

Shabbos Nachamu: Are You Feeling Nechama?

“Nachamu Nachamu Ami y’amar Elokeichem.” After the churban, the Navi tells us that we should be consoled. But are we? 

We just completed an extended mourning period- the 3 weeks, the 9 days, and then the climax- Tisha b’Av. Churban, destruction, desolation, the seemingly unending Galus, filled with rivers of Jewish blood and unimaginable suffering, and now it's finally time to be consoled. So, how does it feel to be consoled? Let’s be honest, we aren’t. So, maybe we should just ask very simply- why aren’t we? What’s missing?

If the consolation is that finally all of the restrictions have been lifted- we can bathe, eat meat, drink wine, listen to music, and make chasanas, then we’re already there. But everyone knows that leaving the period of aveilus in its various forms hardly qualifies as the nechama. So, that can’t be what the Navi had in mind.

If what the Navi means by telling us “Nachamu Nachamu Ami” is that eventually there will be a Geula, perhaps we do understand what he said, but how can we possibly feel that now? It hasn’t happened yet!

Perhaps we need an entirely different approach.

The Vilna Gaon explains that the first time a word appears in the Torah is definitive. In other words, if we desire to understand the meaning of a word that appears elsewhere in Tanach, we need to revert to its initial usage, see what it means, and from there we will gain insight as to how to understand it everywhere else.

Where does the word nechama first appear in the Chumash? At the end of Parshas Breishis, Hashem assesses his prized creation, man, and is utterly disappointed. The pinnacle of His handiwork just hasn’t worked out as planned. Man’s evil deeds and thoughts have undermined his entire reason for existence. 

The posek tells us Hashem’s reaction. “VaYinachem Hashem ki asa es ha’adam ba’aretz.” Yinachem and Nechama share the same shoresh- “nachem.” Targum Onkelos says that nachem means- “Tav”; return. What does it mean that Hashem returned? He returned from His original intent, or in other words, had regret for creating Man. So we see that Nachem or nechama, at its core, actually means reversal, not as we commonly refer to it as consolation.

Nachamu nachamu Ami is not a call from The Ribbono Shel Olam for us to be consoled, but rather that there will be a reversal, and consequently we will be consoled. However, if this is so, our questions only become more difficult. Where is that reversal? We’re still in Galus, there’s no Beis HaMikdash, and the Schina seems to be as distant as ever!

Perhaps the words of R’ Yisroel Salanter, zt’l will shed some light. He says that although we live in a world of utter churban, devoid of the Beis HaMikdash, without the mizbaech, the kalim, and karbonos, in the world of Halacha, everything remains intact. In the world of Halacha, the Beis HaMikdash stands in all of its grandeur and glory, karbonos are being brought on the mizbaech, and all of the kalim are being used regularly. On Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol enters the Kodesh HaKadashim with the k’tores, as the entire nation awaits with bated breath for his safe return. 

In other words, the world of Halacha is a Real World; a world that remains unscathed or even minimized by “the facts on the ground.” This world is the world of Torah, it is the world of nitzchius, it is a world that isn’t contingent on what is or isn’t going on in “real time.”

Perhaps, we can apply this powerful yesod to the Geula as well. While in “real time,” we see nothing but churban, destruction, and desolation, in the world of Torah, the Geula is already there in all of its glory and grandeur. 

We are the ones who are confined to the boundaries of time and space, but in Hashem’s world, the world of Torah, those boundaries don’t exist. The Geula Shlaima is already there!

And yet, you will tell me that this is too abstract. I just don’t feel it. And of course, you are correct. Who am I trying to kid? 

To answer this, we need to ask two other questions. 

• What is our reality? 
• How do you view the Torah in relationship to that reality?

Most of us define reality as the “facts on the ground,” And while the Torah HaKedosha enhances, uplifts, and gives meaning to this reality, at the end of the day, we are still grounded in the world we see with our eyes.  When we look around, we see nothing but churban. The Geula is but a promise that we yearn to be fulfilled. But that Geula is not very real at the moment.

On the other hand, if our reality is Torah, akin to the world of Halacha as R’ Yisroel Salanter zt’l explained, things are quite different. While we live our lives in this world, our reality is quite different. It isn’t defined by what we do or don’t see. The Geula is as real as anything else. Our yearning is not hoping for it to be, but rather longing for what we know is already there, yet to be implemented here on the ground, in our lives.

When Hashem promised Avraham Avinu at the Bris bain HaB’sarim that there would be a Geulas Mitzraim, it wasn’t merely a promise, but rather sharing with Avraham Avinu a window into the Geula that already existed, but not yet implemented in “real time.” And our Geula is no different. 

The key is where to focus our eyes, and consequently deciding what we see. Many years ago, a renowned Spanish author, Juan Luis Borges, came to America on a speaking tour. Although he was blind, he wrote award-winning novels. Now a man in his 60s, he told his audience that he wasn’t always blind; that his blindness was the result of a shooting accident when he was 25. What astounded the crowd was what he said next. He told them that he didn’t begin to see until he became blind. As long as his eyes were focused outwards, he wasn’t seeing reality. It was only when his gaze went inside that he began to see truth itself!

This, then, is our challenge. Where are we going to focus our eyes? On the churban that exists outside, devoid of any trace of Geula, or on the Geula that already exists inside, in the world of Torah, in the world of Hashem. 

The more that we turn that gaze inwards, the more the reversal of the churban becomes real. It’s no longer just a hope for Moshiach to come, but yearning for the reality of the Geula to become the facts on the ground. And at that point, we no longer need to exert ourselves to see the reversal, to feel nechama. The nechama, which is already there, will become more and more accessible. The more you turn that gaze inwards, the more genuine nechama will become your felt sense.