20.07.2013                      13.Aw.5773                      Wa'etchanan; Schabbat Nachamu

Feature:

Compassionate righteousness vs ritual piety

What makes an immigrant choose to live in a house built nearly 130 years ago?

‘Comfort you, comfort you, my nation, says the Lord your God’ (Isaiah 40:1) This Shabbat takes its name from our reading from the Prophets, Shabbat Nahamu, the Sabbath of Comfort. Indeed, the entire month is known as Menahem Av, the comforting month of Av. And in the reading of Isaiah (chapter 40), the prophet adjures us to speak to the heart of Jerusalem, to do penance for our sins, to make a pathway for our Lord, to straighten out our crooked roads. In his magnificent lyric style, he is telling us to repent, for in repentance, we will find our comfort and our redemption….