This week we read Parashat Vaetchanan, on Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort after Tisha B’Av.
After the heaviness of the fast, after remembering destruction, exile, and all the painful moments that have marked Jewish history, we hear the words from Isaiah: “Comfort, comfort My people.” It is a beautiful line, but it is not a magic wand. Comfort does not mean pretending everything is suddenly fine. It does not wipe away grief or make the broken parts disappear.
Real comfort starts by admitting that something has been broken.
That is why Vaetchanan feels so powerful this week. Moshe stands before the people, knowing that he will not enter the Land. He pleads with HaShem, but the answer is no. After everything he has carried, after years of leading, arguing, teaching, and interceding for the people, Moshe has to accept a limit he did not choose.
That is hard to sit with. We like stories where devotion is rewarded neatly and prayers are answered in the way we hoped. But life is not always like that, and Torah is honest enough not to pretend otherwise. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes a door closes. Sometimes we have to keep going while carrying disappointment.
And Moshe does keep going. He does not sulk, walk away, or decide that if he cannot enter the Land then nobody else should either. He teaches. He warns. He prepares the next generation. There is something deeply moving about that. He cannot complete the journey himself, but he still helps others move forward.
Then, in this same parashah, we receive the Shema. “Hear, O Israel, HaShem is our G-d, HaShem is One.” These words sit at the centre of Jewish life, but they are not there to make life simple. They are there to anchor us when life is not simple.
Perhaps that is exactly why we read them now. After Tisha B’Av, after facing what has been lost, Judaism does not tell us to forget. It tells us to listen. Hear, O Israel. Hear the warning. Hear the pain. Hear what must change. And hear, too, that HaShem is still One, even when the world feels fractured.
Shabbat Nachamu reminds us that grief is part of Jewish memory, but it is not the whole of Jewish memory. We have mourned, but we have also rebuilt. We have wept, but we have also sung. We have carried loss, but also Torah, family, community, laughter, stubbornness, hope, and that very Jewish refusal to disappear.
That feels important now. Jewish communities continue to face uncertainty, anxiety, and hostility. Comfort cannot mean denial. It has to mean something stronger than that. It means remembering that we have stood in difficult places before and still found a way to build again.
Moshe does not get everything he prayed for. That is painful. But he still leaves the people with teaching, with love, and with direction. Perhaps that is one of the quiet lessons of Vaetchanan. Not every prayer is answered in the way we want. Not every journey ends where we expected. But we can still bless. We can still teach. We can still help others walk forward.
Comfort is not the same as everything being fixed.
Sometimes comfort is simply finding enough hope to carry on, and enough faith to believe that what is broken is not beyond repair.