How do we offer comfort? I think this is a profound question when it comes to creating community. We encounter people that need and deserve comfort all the time, and yet we often - all of us - don’t even know where to start.
This week, our tradition depicts us as a people, a whole, that so desperately wants to be comforted. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple, commemorated on Tisha b’Av last Sunday, our people are bereft and lost. So this week, called ‘Shabbat Nachamu,’ a Shabbat of Comfort, the first words of the Haftarah speak to that emotional state. It gives us a pathway towards offering comfort to others.
Comfort, comfort my people, says God Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call out to her. (Isaiah 40:1-2)
I know that so often when we want to connect to someone in pain, when we want to bring them comfort, we don’t know what to say. We’ll often chime in about our own experiences, or we’ll try and let them know that everything will turn out OK, or we’ll talk about something lighter and avoid the deep emotional stuff. But Isaiah reminds us what is most powerful when we are seeking out comfort ourselves and when we are trying to offer it to others. “Speak to the heart,” he says. Dabru al lev - speak to the heart - these three words in Hebrew feel profoundly important for our ability to form connections that lead to comfort.
How often do we try to speak to the heart of someone, and what would that look like? Speaking to the true emotional experience of someone, meeting them in that place, not being afraid to acknowledge the state of their heart - that is comfort. I believe comfort isn’t about making pain go away, and it’s not about changing the reality of someone else’s situation - that we can’t do as human beings. But we can offer comfort in the form of emotional understanding. We can offer comfort in the form of acknowledgement of someone else’s heart. Speak to the heart.
This Shabbat, Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort, I pray that we are each able to find the comfort that we need. I pray that we are able to speak to the hearts of others, and that we allow others to speak to our own tender hearts.
Shabbat Shalom Rabbi Sarit
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