Comfort Ye! Comfort Ye!

The Shabbat after the fast of the Ninth of Av, is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort. Its name comes from the 40^th Chapter of the Biblical Prophet Isaiah and let us ignore the debate about how many Isaiahs there were. 

The first Chapter of the Book of Isaiah we read in the Haftarah last week foretold the awful catastrophe that would befall corrupt, hypocritical, immoral and unjust societies that both the two Israelite kingdoms descended to. Now, this week, we are comforted after the event with the promise that however bad things were, however much we had suffered, there would be hope, reconstruction and survival. Chapter 40 is perhaps the best-known chapter in all the prophets. It is used both by Judaism and Christianity to reassure the faithful that there is a future no matter how bleak the present. Lovers of Handel’s Messiah will recognize how much of the text has been taken from the Book of Isaiah. And whereas Christianity’s Messiah came, we still await ours!

Here is a selection of the different translations of the opening lines which perfectly illustrate the challenges of translation.

King James 1611

Comfort ye, comfort ye O my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

Jewish Publication Society 1999

Comfort, oh comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and declare to her that her term of service is over, that her iniquity is expiated for she has received at the hand of the Lord double for her sins.

Modern

Be comforted, be comforted My people says your God.Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and declare to her that her days of suffering have ended,  that her crimes have been pardoned. She has received more than double punishment for her wrongs.

And to lighten the mood this is what we as kids liked to say: 

Come for tea, Come for tea, O my people!

Once again, we are faced with a huge crisis, both internal and external, that amounts to an existential clash between Jews and much of the rest of the World. Over the Fast of the Ninth of Av, Tisha B’Av,  I tend to read the history of the Jewish Roman Wars. By far the best is Martin Goodman’s Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. But a close second is  Guy Maclean Rogers’ For the Freedom of Zion: The Great Revolt of Jews against Rome, 66-74 CE.

Both books rely very heavily on the works of the Jewish historian Josephus who lived through it all. He started leading the defense of Galilee against Roman mismanagement and aggression. But then defected and joined the Romans because of his disavowal of Jewish in fighting. He moved to Rome where he wrote his histories and defended Judaism against its opponents. We know how biased all historians were in that era ( and still are) and we cannot rely on the accuracy of their numbers or opinions. Both Goodman and Rogers challenge Josephus’s reliability but there are no better contemporary records. Both go into painful detail about the religious, social, economic and political rivalries within the Jewish world to the point of actual civil war. Both also emphasize the extent to which the economic, religious and social rivalries  between the non-Jewish and Jewish communities in the Roman Empire led to terrible massacring of men, women and children. Altogether a horrible, unpredictable world in which the only alternative for most was cruel, inhuman slavery.

Jewish national independence  and identity was all but snuffed out. Only the reconstructed religious communities managed to survive. But mirabile dictu, whereas Rome declined never to recover, the Jewish people is still around even if as unpopular as ever.

Some of us see the hand of God in this, as proof of God’s involvement in our world through history. Others see in this the promise of redemption, Messianic relief and the fulfillment of a covenant. I just marvel at the phenomenon of our minute survival and find comfort in our intense religion. Nevertheless, each time we have expected normality we have been cruelly disappointed and reminded once again we are not wanted. And it doesn’t help that we just get on with it and succeed. Yet as optimists, we still hope that this time will be different.

There are those who take comfort from our survival as miraculous. As an honor that we have been chosen to be the canary in the coal mine. The precursor of decline and fall and yet the symbol of resilience. This is indeed Isaiah’s message of comfort. that we will survive.

So let us accept Isaiah’s invitation, and drink tea with those who choose, against the odds, to stand by our side. And pray we have learnt our lesson.