The three Shabbatot leading up to Tisha B’Av are known as the Three Weeks of Affliction, with the haftarot (prophetic readings) filled with messages of rebuke and admonition. This Shabbat sets off a 7 week climb to Rosh Hashanah—known as the 7 weeks of consolation; we are given messages of God’s nearness, God’s return, and the endless possibilities of teshuvah, repentance. This Shabbat, in particular, is known as Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of Comfort, taken from the first lines of the haftarah, where the prophet Isaiah cries out: Nachamu, nachamu ami—comfort, comfort My people.
There is a tradition in our sacred texts. For all of the pain and anger and destruction, the rabbis believe deeply in the notion of a nechemta, the notion that we do not end a reading or a teaching on a note of despair. For this reason, we finish our reading of the Book of Lamentations not with its final verse, but with the penultimate one: Return to us, O God, and we will return. Renew our days as of old. It is a message not just for the end of this day, but for the season we find ourselves entering as Tisha B’Av comes to a close. These weeks of consolation invite us to return to the Divine, yes, but also to ourselves, to our hopes for the year ahead (yes, even now), and to the relationships, memories, and connections we want to create, deepen, and strengthen. Let these hopes, these visions, and these possibilities of return give us comfort—not only today, but for the future.
Shabbat Shalom.
— Rabbi Sari Laufer