Pain and Comfort

Va-ethannan 5778 / 28 July 2018

This week is Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. After surviving Tisha B’Av and the Three Weeks, this week we read Isaiah’s prophecy of Comfort, Nachamu, in the first of what are known as the seven haftarot of comfort. Therefore, we should explore – what does comfort mean?

I have a two year old that I spend a lot of time comforting. When little children are upset, we hold them, we tell them that everything will be alright. We tell them that what they are crying about – a fall, a toy breaking, their pajamas being the wrong color – is not that big of a deal. We try to give them perspective and convince them that there is no reason to be upset.

This makes sense for children, but it doesn’t work for adults. When adults are sad, there’s usually a good reason for it. When we go to comfort a mourner, we have to recognize that everything will not be alright. The death of a loved one is a big deal. It is a terrible, painful tragedy, and no context can mitigate that sadness.

Interestingly, the word Nachem in Hebrew, when it is addressed to people, we usually translate it as comfort. However, it is also applied to God, but there it seems to mean something different. The verse in Samuel I reads, “וגם נצח ישראל לא ישקר ולא ינחם, כי לא אדם הוא להנחם.” “The Eternal of Israel does not lie nor change Their mind for They are not a person to have Their mind changed.” Nachem seems to be about change, or the ability to change. Therefore, let me propose that to comfort someone is to give them ability to change. The ability to change themselves and to change the world around them.

We can think of our lives in two different emotional modes: Pain and Comfort. When we are comfortable, our capacity to act in the world expands. We look for opportunities to grow and change, and we share our love with those around us, helping our neighbors, doing mitzvot, and making the world better. But, when we are in pain, those tasks become impossible. We turn inward, our only goal is to survive and escape the pain. Our tradition acknowledges our nature, and that’s why someone whose relative passes away is not allowed to perform most mitzvot. Our tradition tells this person who is suffering that their obligation is to themselves and their loved one – God and their community will wait. Similarly, a mourner is not allowed to study Torah. Again, our tradition is telling them, that at this moment, their energies are appropriately focused inwards, not on learning new ideas.

In that light, when we comfort someone, we are helping them move from this inward world of pain and survival, to a life of change and agency. When we visit a mourner, we can’t bring their loved one back, nor can we erase the sadness that will always live with them. Rather, we sit with our neighbors, we listen to them, we care for them, and we let them feel love. We remind them, that no matter how bad they feel, they are a part of a community that supports them. We let them realize the powerful impact that they have had on us already, and we assure them, that one day soon – they will again be able to stand up straight and give to their neighbors. We help them leave that world of pain – to the world where they are again agents of change and Mitzvot.

Our summer liturgical calendar began with Three Weeks of Puranut – of suffering and pain. This week we mark the transition to the Seven Weeks of Comfort. Remarkably, these Seven Weeks take us right to Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgement. When we are in pain, just surviving is the greatest thing that we can do. And when we truly suffer, it can take a long time to regain our footing. But once we do – we have an obligation, and we are judged. When our lives our stable, when we are free people, we are obligated to use that strength to do God’s work, to do Mitzvot and fulfill the Torah.