Tag Archives for haftarot of comfort

days of repentance: 20-21 Elul/haftarah of comfort 6

“i firmly rely on the gates of tears, which are never closed”

you may recall this verse from the Ne’ilah prayer of Yom Kippur. it reveals a good deal about the traditional jewish attitude toward “wrongknowing” of G’d and the “wrongdoing” to which it leads: regret at having missed the point. and the recognition of the consequences of that wandering away for the world, not just for each of us. for we are a People built on the idea of responsibilities, not rights. when we fail, we fail not only ourselves, not only the Holy One, but we fail each other and leave more brokenness unrepaired.

we break things and are broken ourselves thereby. breakage brings hurt. remember the last time someone broke a promise to you. remember the last time your heart was broken by another. was it secret and contained? or did it have wider consequences and follow-on breakage?

but the way of this People of responsibility has always been to recognize that brokenness is also the beginning of redemption. all the prophets reveal this truth. and the kabbalistic way sees Creation as being the history, if you will, of the way of repair, for brokenness is built into the world we come into.

the holiest place available to us today is the remnant of a wall of the Temple compound. have you ever wondered why a broken piece of wall is THE place of prayer? why not build a jewish dome of the rock…so lovely. or maybe the grandeur of st peter’s in rome would suit better? no.the world doesn’t need the smoothing over of fine finishes and gleaming surfaces. it needs a broken remnant, and the haftarah of comfort for this week tells us why by showing us the look of a world redeemed (Isaiah 60:6 & 18)

“aliens will build up your walls…you will call your walls

redemption”

the broken wall is reality. we go there to pray because it brings tears to the feeling heart…it is in a way a test of our submission to the understanding that the world is broken, and it is from that starting point that we move to repair. but that repair is never ours alone to do. we are all in it together, and that is why we do no say ne’ilah alone in the privacy of a corner. we are a People of responsibility. and our tears are for failings personal and communal….as all wronghearings, wrongknowings and wrongdoings are.

tears are the representation that the 3-stage practice of t’shuvah is taking hold:

1. hachna’ah…acceptance and humbling. there is no getting around “submission” to a full accounting of your brokenness. knowing that your path has strayed…you are walking still, but not closely with G’d. simple honesty is all you need. where do you need to be? and how far from it, in which ways…what is the pattern of wronghearing?

2. havdalah….separation from your past. once you have accounted for the error and ferreted out the pattern of misunderstanding, you put off the burden.  your true self is always connected to the Core of All Souls, so know that all wrongknowings are not essential to you. what is pure in you drives the return.

3. hamtakah… the “sweetening” stage. in this stage is forgiveness, relying on the loving acceptance of G’d in spite of all…tears of Ne’ilah. and the real sweetening in tears of reintegration of your self, and getting back to the walk with G’d, not merely in sight, or sorta near, but with.

“weeping may tarry for the evening,

but joy comes in the morning”

this from Psalm 30, but we also see the morning of t’shuvah in the haftarah of comfort

“arise, shine, for your light has come”

indeed, rise and shine, chevrei, and rectify today and on shabbat the months of Kislev and Tevet respectively. like light….that smile shines brightest that follows on after sweet tears.

ketiva v’chatima tovah

days of repentance: haftarah of comfort 5

“for but a brief moment have I forsaken you,

and with abundant mercy will I gather you in”

this week’s haftarah, the 5th of the comfort haftarot, is only 10 lines long (Isaiah 54:1-10). but it is replete with imagery of the heretofore barren giving birth to children, so many, in fact that the sides of the tent of settlement will have to be opened to both the left and also to the right to accommodate the growing brood.

perhaps the lesson for us in Elul, in the course of t’shuvah, is to realize that the exile in which our “I” has been wandering is brief, just a “little holdup” in the much greater volumes of time during which redemption will come and, what’s more, become established and persist. indeed, post-exilic life is greater than the life to which end of exile might be thought to simply ‘return’ you to (54:1)…

“for more are the children of the desolate than those of the married wife”

hmm. is this in the eyes of the one time lonely person who has never married and never given birth? is it just ‘relative’ this way? perhaps….i know that my only daughter seems like an abundance to me. but i suspect that the message for the time of t’shuvah is that the fruits of the work we do this month will multiply beyond our expectations up to this point. all that turning inward will pay rich rewards that will not be contained by your personal tent.

we’ve said that your t’shuvah is individual….unique to you. but the bursting out of the rekindled flame within will exert powerful effects on those to your left and your right….on all those you encounter from this time on. but why are we surprised?

after all, we love ourselves more and rightly as we grow nearer to our mission, nearer to our G’d, nearer to the proper path, so when we love our neighbors as ourselves, what MUST happen? the “as oursleves” effect will be exponential! big love all round, say i. great big love, like the compassion of G’d for the ba’al t’shuvah, the highest form of human soul!

ketivah v’chatima tova