DON’T FORGET THE BABY
The period of the calendar in which we currently find ourselves is called the Seven Weeks of Consolation. For the seven weeks following Tisha b’Av the Haftorahs we read are from Yeshayahu (Isaiah) in which HaShem consoles His people over the destruction of the Bais Hamikdosh and the subsequent exile.
When visiting a shiva home we wish the mourners ‘May HaShem console you along with the rest of the mourners of Zion and Yerushalayim’. The implication is that it will be the same consolation to both the mourners of this shiva home and the mourners of Zion. What will be their consolation? If this consolation is a reference to Moshiach, how will that console the mourners of this shiva home? Furthermore, ‘nechama’ which is the Hebrew word for consolation means to reverse one’s opinion regarding a given issue. Nechama is used when HaShem decided to bring the flood in the days of Noach in the context that He regretted making Man. There was a reversal of understanding. When Moshiach will soon arrive, the pain of the exile will end but will that pain be reversed?
In this week’s Haftorah Yeshayahu tells his people of a conversation between HaShem and Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim is the City who lost her children to the hands of the Babylonian King, Nevuchadnezzar. She sits in mourning for over 2,500 years. Her children suffered terrible tragedies at the hands of their captors throughout that time. She cries aloud “HaShem has forsaken me and He has forgotten me. Does a mother forget her toddler, does a nursing mother forget her suckling? To which HaShem responds to Yerushalayim; Even when these mothers forget their young, I will never forget you, for you are etched in the palms of My hand”
The Malbim explains the metaphor of HaShem’s palms and hands as the expression of HaShem’s activities. He is telling His beloved Yerushalayim that everything He does is totally focused for the welfare of her children. In His direction of history, with all the tragedies that have crossed Klal Yisroel’s path, He always had her childrens’ welfare in mind. HaShem tells His people that even in those dark days of the destruction of the Temple when mothers ate their children, as is recorded in Eicha, HaShem was looking out for the welfare of His people.
But how does HaShem’s response provide Yerushalayim nechama?
Two weeks ago we used the analogy of the highest rated surgeon whose son unfortunately needed his leg amputated. Naturally, the father who is by far the best surgeon performed the surgery himself to protect his son from any unnecessary damage. When the child who was completely unaware of his condition comes out of his anesthesia and realizes that his leg was removed, he lets out a terrible cry. He is in shock how such a thing could happen to him. How could his parents allow someone to do this to him. He is overcome with a feeling of abandonment. Until his father, whom he loves intensely, comes into his room and tells him that it was he who performed the procedure. At that point the son is consoled. Although the child still does not understand why it was done, he is nevertheless consoled knowing that it was done for a very good reason. He knows that this procedure was more emotionally painful for his father than for him. And if his father did it, it must have been for a wonderful reason. Who knows, perhaps he would have died if it was not done.
When Moshiach will arrive, soon in our days, the awareness of HaShem will fill the world just as the waters of seas fill the ocean. There is no part of the ocean that is not covered with water; every brain that can think and every mind that can understand will have the clarity that there is nothing that happens without HaShem allowing it to happen. We may not be able to understand just why all the tragedies befell us but we will be comforted knowing that it was truly wonderful that it happened.
May we see that day, when HaShem no longer needs to undergo such excruciating pain and will finally be able to bring us all home, happily ever after.
Have a safe and wonderful Shabbos.
Paysach Diskind