I’ve been cooking all Shabbat, and it is a strange thing to prepare meals of delights from which I’ve abstained for several days. Chicken, sausage, kebab. The things I love, but would not eat in mourning. Jewish tradition teaches us to make time for mourning, but it also teaches us that there is an end to the process. It teaches us how to get back up. It teaches us that we deserve to be comforted, even if our grief is due — in part — to our own sins.
In the first haftarah of consolation we read this week, we learn about how God comforts the Jewish people after a great calamity: (Isaiah 40:11)
כְּרֹעֶה֙ עֶדְר֣וֹ יִרְעֶ֔ה בִּזְרֹעוֹ֙ יְקַבֵּ֣ץ טְלָאִ֔ים וּבְחֵיק֖וֹ יִשָּׂ֑א עָל֖וֹת יְנַהֵֽל׃ {ס}
Like a shepherd who pastures the flock,
[God] gathers up the lambs
And carries them in the divine bosom,
While gently driving the mother sheep.
Rashi comments that like a shepherd, God pulls lost lambs up with an outstretched arm and brings them back home in His bossom. God doesn’t just pull us back in with a sheep dog or a staff — though there are times for that as well — but that in our moments of vulnerability, grief, exhaustion, and isolation, God pulls us back in like a mother who wants her young to be closer to her heart — to comfort and protect them.
Shepherding well isn’t just about keeping the flock in line and together, though that is part of it. It is also about communicating a loving way back home, and showing tenderness when it is needed. We have mourned, we have atoned, we have wrestled with our grief. Now, the tradition teaches us: we deserve to be comforted, and we should accept that comfort.
May this Shabbat in the waning days of summer bring joy, comfort, and a sense of renewal on our path back home.
Shabbat Shalom!