Shabbat Eikev

Two weeks ago, after observing the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, Tisha B’av, which commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, we entered a period of time known as the “seven weeks of consolation.” During this time, we read selections from the prophets in which they switch from their usual stance of being critical voices of what is wrong to offering comfort to a people feeling lost.

It is too easy in normal times – when we feel safe, healthy, undisturbed to mistakenly think we are self-sufficient, to, in Isaiah’s words this week, “walk by the blaze of [our own] fire.” During times of great disruption, like our ancestors faced, like we face today, we see the walls of the familiar structures around us laying in ruin. We confront our own vulnerability, our deep dependence on each other; are reminded anything that happens to any part of the great web of life in which we and the natural world are bound, affects all of us.

Of course, the so-called “new normal” is no longer new for us at this point, almost five months since COVID 19 tore away the familiar structures in our lives: card games with our friends, movie outings, routine get-togethers with family. And as we look toward the High Holidays, we begin see it was our sense of invulnerability that was the biggest barrier to teshuva – to reorienting to the Source of Life, and to what matters most each day.

From this perspective, though incredibly challenging, a falling away of the familiar can also offer us an opportunity to do teshuva, to return to the deepest ground of our being. Some of us have begun to share, ambivalently, some of the “silver lining” we’ve found in this time; new ways we’ve found to shuv, to return, to Our Life Giving Source: taking more time to tend our gardens; to catch up with old friends we lost touch with; to journal or meditate; to read titles on the long list of books we’ve been meaning to read.

This week, Isaiah acknowledges how painful moments of disruption are. He encourages us to try to get up from the ruined structures around us, saying: “Though [we] walk in darkness / And have no light” we must “rely upon our God.” Our Rock, the Place that provides us with a sense of security deeper than our happiness, health, wealth, or relationship status can give us.

In his closing image in the haftarah, Isaiah assures us that if we trust in Something Greater than Us, we will be able to get close to life once more:

Truly God has comforted Zion / Comforted all its ruins;

God has made its wilderness like Eden / Its desert like the Garden of God.

Gladness and joy shall abide there / Thanksgiving and the sound of music.

So may we be consoled by this vision of redemption, of life renewed, letting our hope for it strengthen us on our own journey of transformation over the next few weeks as we begin to approach the Days of Awe.