Two Minute Torah Podcast

Vaethanan 5770 by Rabbi Steven Wernick

One need only glance at the front page of any paper or internet news source to see that at times our world seems turned upside down. Economic meltdowns, homelessness, war, political unrest, violence in our cities, oil spills, environmental waste, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the elusive search for peace in the Middle East. The issues of our time weigh heavily upon us.

All this and more was on my mind a few weeks ago, two weeks before Tisha B'Av, as I was standing on the Herodian street at Robinson's Arch in the Davidson Center; the southern most western part of the Kotel in Jerusalem. I was there with a USY Pilgrimage group that arrived just the day before from Poland. I pointed out to them the crater in the road formed from the massive stones of the Temple and its retaining wall pushed over by the Roman army. To the left were a pile of the rubble and the remnants of roman catapults.

I asked the pilgrims, rhetorically, where is ancient Rome today? They left the Kotel as a symbol of their might; "Look what we did," for future generations. Yet, today, they are gone. Over two thousand years of exile countless enemies of the Jewish people have come and gone. "You've just arrived from Poland. You visited the mouth of hell: Majdanek, Auschwitz. The Nazi's, too, are gone. BUT you are here, standing in Jerusalem, the capital of the modern sovereign State of Israel. You are STANDING on the original Herodian road. 2000 years old. Literally standing in the footsteps of your ancestors."

In a world turned upside down. This is what gives me comfort. Nahamu, nahamu ami.

The ability to find comfort in this does not happen by accident. We see the brilliance of our ancestors in their choice of the Torah reading that always follows Tisha B'av and Shabbat Nahamu, parashat Ve'etkhanan. In it we read of our ancestors' recommitment to the 10 Commandments. We read Shema V'ehavta. We find comfort in knowing that our tradition is stronger than any challenge. We have an eternal set of values and an eternal means, Jewish practice supports those values in our lives and in our world.

The moment we are in now is, therefore, not permanent. God cares. The covenant remains intact, change is possible, desired even. And the future still awaits us if we recommit ourselves to God and to each other.

Nahamu. Comfort. Well-being. Salvation. It comes when we commit ourselves to something larger than ourselves. Something which will go beyond our own lives. Something which will continue even when we are gone. Something that will allow future generations to stand in our footsteps.