Looking Back to Move Forward: VaEtchanan/Nachamu
Rosh Hashanah II, 5776 ~ 9.15.15
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, Beth Am Synagogue
One of my great loves is working with candidates for conversion, and one of the expectations I
set with them is that before making the choice to become Jewish, a potential ger or georet should
experience the full cycle of the Jewish holidays. It’s obvious, if you pay attention, that there is a
flow, an annual procession of the chagim, and that these observances also exist in a broader
context. For example, every year I’m struck by the structure of this High Holyday period, which
is elegant and purposeful. Let’s take a quick audio tour: Each year, our community moves
through shivah asar b’tammuz and the Three Weeks marked by three special haftarot of
admonition, to Tisha B’Av, our national day of Jewish mourning and the book of Eicha
(Lamentations), to seven weeks of consolation. And all of this, the remembrance of sin and
suffering, the constriction of sadness, the swelling of our capacity to be comforted, is meant to
prepare us for the Yamim Noraim. Ten weeks – three sad, seven comforting – correspond to 10
days, the aseret Y’mai Teshuvah. And all of it culminates in the year’s holiest day: Yom Kippur.
We spend a lot of time during those ten weeks preparing for these days, but rarely do we take
time on the High Holydays to look back. So that’s what I’d like to do today: look back in order
to move forward. On this second day of Rosh Hashanah, as we begin to turn our attention to
Yom Kippur, let’s go back to just after Tisha B’Av. The first of the seven Shabbatot of
consolation has a special designation; it’s called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort. The
name derives from the words of the haftarah where Isaiah says, “Nachamu, nachamu, ami,
comfort oh comfort My people” (Is. 40:1). There are a number of special Shabbatot marked by
special haftarot throughout the year: Shabbat Zakhor, Shabbat Parah, Shabbat Shuvah and so on,
but it’s rare to find special Shabbatot where the Torah and haftarah portions are consistent each
year. That’s the case with Shabbat Nachamu, when we always read V’Etchanan. So what I’d like
to do today is see if that particular Shabbat, observed just over seven weeks ago, has in it some
guidance for us in this moment, in our process of t’shuvah.
Let’s start with the beginning of the Parasha (3:23): “Vaetchanan el Hashem ba’eit ha’hi
leimor,…” Here’s Moses saying to the people, “I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, O
Lord God, You who let Your servant see the first works of Your greatness and Your mighty
hand. You whose powerful deeds no god in heaven or on earth can equal.” “Evra-na v’er’eh et
ha’aretz hotova asher v’eiver hayarden…. Let me, I pray, cross over and see the good land on
the other side of the Jordan….” One 13th-century scholar understands Moses’ oddly revealing
statement as relating to traditional Jewish prayer. To understand this we have to play with
numbers for a moment. You see, words in the Torah convey multiple layers of meaning, and as
you know there are a number of hermeneutic devices our tradition employs to interpret Torah.
One tool is something called Gematria (Jewish numerology where each letter has a numerical
equivalent. Paneach Raza (R. Yitzhak ben Yehuda HaLevi) points out the Gematria of the word
“VaEtchanan” (I pleaded) is 515 which is the same as the word “tefilah” (prayer) and also
“shira” (song). In other words, our approach during songs of praise and petition to God should
be done – argues Rav Yitzhak – in a particular way, with chen (from V’etchanan).
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Remember that word chen; we’ll come back to it. Because he points out another layer, even more
secret and hidden. You see, the first letter of the first word in our verse is “vav” which in
gematria is 6… and the word VaEtchanan has 6 letters… and the verse itself has 6 words. And
what’s 6X3? 18! Shemoneh Esrei, what the Mishnah calls simply “tefilah” – the word for prayer
in general, but here refers to THE PRAYER, the core of any Jewish service: the Amidah.
The rabbis often play with words – speculating about their meaning, form, even the shape of the
individual letters. Here’s an example: why does Torah begin with the letter Bet and not Aleph?
Because the shape is an invitation to what comes after. Hebrew reads right to left and bet opens
left, not right. The answers, according to this understanding, are to be found not to the right, not
before bereishit before the beginning, but in this world, in the words of Torah that follow. Lo
BaShamayim Hi, the secrets of the universe are revealed not in the metaphysical realm, the
ethereal cosmos, but in the world of things, of relationships, of ritual and of the body. And since
the first letter of Torah is bet, it makes sense that the last letter is lamed. Because the first thing
we do when we finish the Torah is to immediately begin again. but not with indifference – with
curiosity and devotion! Lamed-bet is lev, heart. On Simchat Torah we engage in simchat lev,
following the path set forward each year by the letter bet and joyfully inclining our hearts toward
greater Jewish learning.
Now let’s go back to that word chen. I mentioned the parasha on Shabbat Nachamu is
V’Etchanan the basic root word of which is chen, which means grace. Grace is a difficult word
for Jews, largely because of the way Christianity has understood it. I asked a Christian colleague
of mine to define grace. He said it is “undeserved love.” But we Jews don’t have the same
concept of original sin. For us, human worthiness isn’t the issue. Therefore chen, for us, is better
translated not undeserved, but unearned love. Chen is unconditional love, a special kind of love.
Which is why it’s not the Torah’s primary word for love. What’s that? Ahava. (It’s not just a line
of Dead Sea bath products). Ahava is a love of devotion – a love that can be commanded,
“V’ahavta et A’nai Elohecha, you shall love the Lord your God.” Chen is what God does for us
because it’s in God’s nature to love. Or what we do for each other without expectation of
reciprocity, just because we care. It’s what Moses is seeking (and laments that he doesn’t get)
when he says “v’etchanan.” Think back to the Gematria, how v’etchanan is equivalent to tefilah.
To pray is to plea and not usually for what we’ve earned. Moses knows he blew it. He’s just
hoping for another chance. He’s counting on God’s enduring love to get him what he wants. And
he’s confronted with the harsh reality: that God’s love doesn’t always mean getting what we
want. That’s chen: it’s the love of encounter; it can be romantic or platonic, love at first sight or
the kind that comes through spending time with someone, but it’s not about obligation. Torah
employs the expression: matz’ah chen b’einav, “she found favor in his eyes” (or he in hers or
his). In other words, we feel something powerful, but that we can’t quite explain, can’t really
understand.
What, then, is the relationship between chen (v’etchanan) and nachamu? Nachamu, as I
mentioned, is comfort, but also regret. It’s the word Torah assigns to God just before the flood:
“va’yinachem Hashem, ki asah et ha’adam va’aretz, va’yit’atzev el libo,” And the Lord
regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened.” In other words, the three
letter root nun, chet, mem, as in Nachamu, means to be sorry, to pity. Whether the positive
connotation “comfort” or the negative “regret,” it’s a reaction to some sort of wrongdoing.
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But, interestingly enough, the Torah does something different with this word in relation to the
flood narrative; there’s an intra-textual drash on Noah’s name. What’s Noah in Hebrew? Noach.
The end of Parashat Bereishit explains Noach is given this name because, “Zeh y’nachameinu
mima’aseinu…. This one will provide us comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands,
out of the very soil which the Lord placed under a curse” (Gen. 5:29). In other words, scripture
relates the name Noach not to its proper root nun, vav, chet, but the same root as nacham –
comfort (nun, chet, mem).
This isn’t just a word game. In fact there’s a school of thought which argues all Hebrew words
derive initially from two, not three-letter roots. This approach is championed by venerated
scholars and linguists like Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, Yehoshua Steinberg and Marcus Jastrow.
Steinberg uses the example of Noach to claim it’s fairly common for a two letter root to gain a
“mem,” at the end. So, strip away that final mem or vocalize Noach differently and we’re left
with nach – comforting rest. Here’s the cool part: chen (chet-nun) is the inverse of nach (nunchet).
Which leaves us with the obvious question: what’s the conceptual relationship between the two?
Or going back to our original question, why might the rabbis have chosen Parashat v’Etchanan
to always coincide with Shabbat Nachamu? And what does this pairing indicate to us about our
process of t’shuvah as we approach Yom Kippur? If you think about it, chen and nach are
complimentary. Of course, they’re equivalent in Gematria, but they’re also two sides of the same
coin. The capacity for chen, to be gracious in our dealings with others, can be cultivated, but it’s
hardwired in us. It’s what happens when we stop trying so hard, slow our breath, relax our heart
muscles and allow love to flow freely. It’s a result of our deepest humanity when we access the
Godly part. It’s what our souls wish to be but also that which is so often checked by our egos,
our fears and our expectations.
The words related to nach, nun-chet on the other hand, are about choice, deliberate reaction.
Nechama is something we give or receive in response to pain, anxiety, frustration or suffering.
Noach, rest, is what comes after we’ve been active, a response to unrest. The kindness that leads
to comfort (nechama), surprisingly, doesn’t come naturally at all. Think about young children:
they love instinctually, but they’re selfish. Not generous, not comforting. Good parenting is
about teaching our children to put others first. Perhaps this is why the hero of the flood story is
named Noach. He earns salvation. When humanity is beyond saving, Noah is the one God
chooses to repopulate the earth. He is an ish tzadik, a good man, a righteous man, a man who is
centered while the world is off-kilter. Ostensibly he’s constructed, like an ark, a worthy life; he’s
built up and shaped his sense of morality. And having done so, he can be at rest, adrift in a
convulsive ocean, a man at peace, hard-earned in a world of bloodshed and hate.
But then, Noah isn’t perfect. He’s human. He makes mistakes, before the flood and after. We
aren’t expected to be perfect – that’s not what the story’s about – but we are asked to be holy.
This is where grace comes in. As S.R. Hirsch points out us, Noah has not fully earned the pardon
he receives, but he’s capable of accessing his holiness. All humanity may be worthy of God’s
love, but in a generation so wicked, only Noah is worth of saving. His imperfection, unlike his
neighbors, is not debilitating. Which is why, I think, it is Noach, the Torah’s first use of the
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letters nun-chet, who is associated with the very first use of the letters chet-nun. “V’Noach matza
chen b’einei Hashem, Noah found favor with God” (Gen. 6:8).
The Shabbat of seven weeks ago, the annual pairing of V’etchanan and Nachamu, is the perfect
entrée to the High Holyday season. Just as the letter bet points to the rest of Torah, so too
Shabbat Nachamu points to Rosh Hashanah and to Yom Kippur. What’s the work of the Yamim
Noraim? Teshuvah, repentance, is (to be sure) a reflection of God’s forgiving nature. We do the
hard work and we are given a fresh start – Because God is a God of justice and mercy. And
hopefully, when teshuvah happens, we are also forgiving of one another! Nachamu, nachamu
ami. Be comforted by Me, my people… and my people, be comforting! Because, selfimprovement is possible, progress is attainable, broken relationships are mendable.
But nach isn’t enough; there is also an element of chen in the Yom Tovim. After all, we’re human
which means both that we have access to fundamental goodness but that we are also
fundamentally flawed. And no matter how hard we try, this year, like last year, we will fall short.
Not because we’re immoral, but because we’re imperfect. Even Moses doesn’t make it to the
Promised Land. The goal isn’t to finally get it right this year; it’s sustained and incremental
growth. We earn some of the forgiveness we get, but the rest is unearned; it’s the love we receive
from God and the people in our lives who make life worth living.
Chen and nach, chet-nun and nun-chet, are a chiasm; they are a deliberate inversion meant to
challenge us not to rest on our laurels, not to assume that there’s enough love in the world to
abide all our failings. We have work to do. But also, they’re a reminder that it’s exceedingly
difficult, maybe impossible, to make progress alone. We need others (friends, family, God) to
love us through our many failings, to give us yet another chance, to judge us not only by what we
do but also by who we are.
We began with numbers, so let’s end there. The gematria of chen and nach is 58 which is
equivalent to the word N’vo. What’s N’vo? It’s the mountain on which Moses dies. It’s the place
from which he sees the Land but does not enter. Did you ever wonder why our most sacred book
leaves us year after year, just shy of the Promised Land? It’s not sadistic; this is the genius of
Torah. We, like Moses, are always moving toward something good but never fully arriving. Each
year, we come to Har N’vo. We get there through some combination of nach and chen. And then
we stand on the mountain, peering into the places we didn’t reach.
But, my friends, we are not yet at Yom Kippur. There’s still time to climb a bit higher. In doing
so, may each of us draw nearer to the best version of ourselves. And next year, when we arrive at
Shabbat Nachamu, may we draw inspiration from our capacity for growth and comfort and from
the knowledge that we don’t have to do it alone.
Shana Tova u’Gmar Hatima Tova!
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