Video D’var for B’nai Israel, Boca Raton
Shabbat Shalom.
This Shabbat has a name of its own: Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. It takes its name from the opening words of this week’s haftarah from the book of the major prophet, Isaiah:
נַחֲמ֥וּ נַחֲמ֖וּ עַמִּ֑י
“Nachamu, nachamu ami” — “Comfort, oh comfort My people”
This is not just a beautiful phrase. It is the first of what Jewish tradition calls the shiva d’nechemta — the seven haftarot of consolation that carry us from the depths and sadness of Tisha B’Av which commemorates the destructions of the first and second temples in Jerusalem and which continue each week all the way to Rosh Hashanah. For seven weeks, our prophetic readings will not let us forget that we are being comforted, again and again, each week building on the last, until we arrive at the Days of Awe ready to stand before God not as a broken people, but as a people who have been held, steadied, and renewed. We approach God on Rosh Hashanna not a broken and miserable people with no chance of forgiveness and healing, but as individuals and a people filled with possibilities and positivity about the future.
Think about where we have just come from. Look at the contrast. On Tisha B’Av Jews sit on the ground reading Eicha – the Book of Lamenations found in the Hebrew scriptures between the books of Ruth and Ecclesiastes. On that day, Jews remembered the destruction of both Temples, the exile, the long catalogue of Jewish suffering that our tradition insists we not look away from. Many Jews fast. Many still mourn our loss. And that mourning was real — it was supposed to be real. Judaism does not ask us to skip past grief or pretend it isn’t there. And even though we may have ascribed new meaning to Tisha B’av as modern Jews who do not necessarily mourn the destruction of the temple, the day has come to represent a day of mourning for all the losses and tragedies of the Jewish people. It has become a day of feeling the weight of Jewish loss throughout history.
But here is the profound wisdom embedded in our calendar: we do not stay there. We are not a people who languishes in sorrow. Tisha B’Av is followed, almost immediately, by this Shabbat, Shabbat Nachamu. It is exactly like getting up from shiva. One week after a death, those sitting shiva are supposed to literally stand up, leave the house and walk around the block. They have reentered life. The same is true right after Tisha B’av. This Shabbat after Jewish sadness, our comfort arrives.
Our sages could have designed a calendar of extended mourning. They didn’t. They designed a calendar that says: yes, acknowledge the pain fully, sit with it, let it teach you something — and then, comfort comes. Better days are ahead. And notice the word construction that Isaiah uses. He doesn’t just say “nachamu” once. He says it twice — nachamu, nachamu — as if one comfort is not enough, as if God is telling the prophet: comfort them, and then comfort them again, because a people who has suffered as we have needs a double portion of hope to begin to believe it again.
I think about this rhythm — grief that is honored but not eternal, sorrow that gives way to resolve — and I cannot help but think of what has happened in Israel since October 7th.
That day was our Tisha B’Av in real time. And the added irony and pain is that it happened on Simchat Torah: literally the ‘Joy in the Torah’ that falls at the end of Sukkot and ends the High Holiday season. We all saw it, even those who denied it every happened. It was destruction, loss, and horror on a scale that shook the Jewish world to its core.
Yet, in its aftermath, something remarkable emerged from within Israeli society: the “Am Yisrael Chai” gatherings, the hostage square vigils, and perhaps most strikingly, a movement that took its name from a song — “Nirkod Shuv,” We Will Dance Again.
That phrase comes from the Nova music festival, where young people were murdered while dancing in celebration of life and freedom. And rather than let that image be the final word, survivors, families, and communities across Israel and the Jewish world took up the phrase as a declaration: we will not be defined only by what was done to us. We will grieve — deeply, honestly — and we will also dance again. Both things are true at once. That is not a contradiction. That is exactly the theology of Shabbat Nachamu.
The seven weeks of comfort don’t ask us to forget Tisha B’Av. They ask us to carry it forward transformed. To me, that is Jewish genius. It’s not just making lemonade out of lemons…it’s planting a whole grove so the next generation can enjoy the fruits of joy even after sadness.
Each haftarah between now and Rosh Hashanah adds another layer: comfort, then reassurance, then the promise of rebuilding, until by the time we reach the new year, we are not people defined by destruction, but people who know that destruction is never the final chapter.
“We Will Dance Again” is not naïve optimism. It is not denial. It is the same move Isaiah makes when he says nachamu, nachamu — grief acknowledged, and then met, deliberately and defiantly, with hope. The dancing doesn’t erase the mourning. It stands right beside it, refusing to let sorrow have the last word.
So on this Shabbat Nachamu, as we begin this seven-week journey toward the new year, may we hold both truths the way our tradition teaches us to. May we honor what was lost without being consumed by it. And may we, like those who returned to dance again, walk forward toward Rosh Hashanah — comforted, and ready to build better days.
Shabbat Shalom
