Ever since the yearly cycle of Torah readings was standardised towards the end of the Second Temple era, and the fixed calendar as calculated by Hillel II (Hillel ben Yehudah, Nasi or head of the Sanhedrin) was adopted in 4119 (359 C.E.), we have always begun reading the Book of Deuteronomy on the Shabbat which falls during the Nine Days – the period of intense mourning for our destroyed Holy Temple and our devastated Land of Israel.
And therefore we invariably read Parashat Va-et’chanan on the Shabbat immediately following the 9th of Av.
And this leads us to a curious singularity in the Torah-reading:
The Torah-reading for the morning of the 9th of Av is Deuteronomy 4:25-40 – which is part of Parashat Va-et’chanan. This means that we invariably read these 16 verses twice in a single week: the first time on the 9th of Av, and again on the Shabbat immediately following.
What message does this paragraph contain, that makes it relevant to the 9th of Av? And what message does it have that is germane to the Shabbat after the 9th of Av?
It begins:
“When you beget children and grandchildren and will become veteran in the Land and become corrupt; when you make an idolatrous statue, an image of anything; when you do evil in Hashem your G-d’s eyes to infuriate Him – I call Heaven and earth today as witnesses against you, that you that you will assuredly be swiftly eliminated from the Land which you are crossing the Jordan into to inherit! You will not prolong your days therein, because you will assuredly be destroyed”.
This is Moshe’s unequivocal message to the Children of Israel in his final days in this world.
And it is supremely relevant to the 9th of Av, because it tells us unequivocally that Jewish history is not random. Other nations come and go, strut and fret their hour on the stage of history, and then are heard no more.
Not so the Nation of Israel: “Because I am with you, says Hashem, to save you; though I put an end to all the nations among which I will have scattered you, to you I will not put an end. Though I punish you according to justice, I will never entirely annihilate you” (Jeremiah 30:11). [1]
When we suffer, our suffering is never random happenstance. The well-known aphorism אֵין מָזָל לְיִשְׁרָאֵל, “there is no luck for Israel” (Shabbat 156a, Nedarim 32a, et al.) does not mean that we are doomed to suffer (even though Jewish history often seems to indicate that…). What it means is that our national destiny doesn’t depend upon luck. It depends directly upon G-d’s justice.
Our exile from our Land was not simply because of the Babylonians’ and Romans’ military superiority. It was because G-d had judged us and found us deserving of punishment – or at least, undeserving of His protection.
When other nations reach the full measure of evil, or when they have achieved their task in this world, G-d can put an end to them.
Not with Israel: “Only you have I known from all the families on the earth, which is why I will visit all your sins upon you” (Amos 3:2).
The ancient Egyptians, the Edomites, the Jebusites, the Canaanites, the Babylonians, the Romans – all stormed the stage of history, all changed the world in their own ways – and all have disappeared into the black hole of history.
The languages they spoke, the gods they worshiped, the religions they followed – none survived, today they are known (if at all) to a few erudite scholars or arcane history.
Not with Israel: though G-d visits all our sins upon us, punishes us for them, holds us to account for them, He does not and never will entirely annihilate us.
This is the eternal message of the Nine Days, culminating with the 9th of Av. We have endured terrible disasters – but the operative word here is “endured”: we have indeed endured, we are still here after all those attempts to exterminate us.
The Torah-reading continues:
“Hashem will scatter you among the nations, and you will remain few in number among the peoples to which Hashem will lead you, and there you will worship man-made gods, wood and stone” (Deuteronomy 4:27-28).
Maybe an oblique reference to the religions of the vast majority of countries to which Jews were exiled? “Wood and stone” – the wooden cross and the rock of Mecca, Christianity and Islam?
This level of historical responsibility is frightening – yet it is also comforting. It is comforting precisely because of the guarantee that history is not random, there is ultimately a just reason for all the horrors we have endured.
On the 9th of Av we concluded at verse 40, which is the end of Moshe’s first discourse, which began in Deuteronomy 1:6.
On Shabbat we will continue with the historical narrative:
“Then Moshe set apart three cities in Trans-Jordan, to the east, for a killer who had killed someone unintentionally to flee to…” (Deuteronomy 4:41). These are the three “cities of refuge” which we first encountered in Numbers 35:9-34.
Deuteronomy 5:1 continues with Moshe’s second discourse – including his restatement of the Ten Commandments – which concludes in Deuteronomy 26:18.
This Shabbat, the first Shabbat after the 9th of Av, is called שַׁבַּת נַחֲמוּ, the Shabbat of Consolation. The name derives from the first word of the Haftarah, נַחֲמוּ, “console”:
“Console, console My nation, says your G-d; speak to the heart of Jerusalem, calling to her that her time of exile has been completed, that her sin has been forgiven…” (Isaiah 40:1-2).
The Prophet’s language here is beautifully poetic, and allows for different interpretations. Targum Yonatan homiletically renders: “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, that she will in the future be filled with the exiled nation…”.
As much as the Torah-reading told us that exile and suffering are not random happenstance but part of G-d’s directed plan for human history, so the Haftarah teaches us that our return to our ancestral homeland is also no random happenstance but part of G-d’s directed plan for human history.
We, the Jewish nation as a whole, are currently going through an exceptionally difficult period. Just about every Jew in Israel personally knows someone who has been killed or injured in the conflict, or who is confronting the Hamas in Gaza or the Hezbollah in Lebanon, or who has been displaced from his or her home for months.
And outside of Israel, throughout the countries of our exile, more Jews than any time since the defeat of the Nazis y”sh are feeling the threat of Jew-hatred.
This is the time to study – not just read, but to study in depth – the messages of the 9th of Av, of Parashat Va-et’chanan, and of Haftarat Nachamu.
Though we were exiled, scattered to the four winds, beaten, persecuted, slaughtered in our millions – we are still here to tell of our history. We came back home, as all our Prophets promised we would. Kibbutz Galuyot (the Ingathering of the Exiles) and Shivat Tziyyon (the Return to Zion) have leaped out of the pages of the Tanach and into today’s newspaper headlines.
We still mourn on the 9th of Av. We will continue to mourn our dead, our murdered. We will continue to fight to bring our kidnapped back home.
And in spite of the worst that our enemies can do, we are well on the way to the complete redemption which saturates the Haftarah of this Shabbat and all the Shabbatot for the rest of this year.
History is not a coincidence.
And even though those who fight against G-d’s planned direction for His world – whether the Romans, or the Nazis y”sh, or the Hamas, or anyone else – can inflict horrific damage on us, they cannot prevent our ultimate destiny which G-d Himself has decreed and promised.
Endnote
[1] The translation “I will not leave you entirely unpunished” relies on a misunderstanding of the Hebrew וְנַקֵּה לֹא אֲנַקֶּךָּ. This mistranslation originated with Christian Bible-translators who were unfamiliar with Hebrew idiom, and has unfortunately found its way into certain Jewish translations (e.g. The Jerusalem Bible translated by Harold Fish, and the Jewish Publication Society 1985 edition).
