Comfort, Comfort My People

This week's meditation comes to you from Toronto where I am in training all week. I am speaking tomorrow at the shul, but I thought that I would give you a little foretaste of it.

This week begins the 7 weeks of consolation. This follows on the 3 weeks of rebuke which culminated in the observance of Tisha B'Av, the commemoration of the destruction of the temples and many other tragedies.

Our Haftorah reading (reading from the prophets) this week is from the first verses of Isaiah 40. It begins, "Nachamu, nachamu ami", "Comfort, comfort, my people". God brings words of consolation to a severely chastened Israel. He tells them that their time of punishment is over, that He loves them, has not forgotten His covenant with them, and will restore them.

The rabbis asked why the word "comfort" is repeated twice. The answer is that they stand for the 2 temples. But it also points to the future temple, the Third Temple. The one that God will bring down from heaven at the end of time. Just as the second Temple was far more grand and glorious than the first, so too this third one will be infinitely more glorious than the second one.

So as we mourn for the destruction that continues to exist in the world, we can take comfort in the fact that someday this will all end in Yeshua's glorious return, not as humble servant, but as powerful king. And to that New Jerusalem, with its Temple at the center.

May we all be comforted.