By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
EL CAJON, California –There’s something profoundly human about the cycle we find ourselves in this time of year. We sat low, hearts heavy, grieving the destruction of our Temples, and perhaps the broken places in our own lives too. Some have been mourning especially since October 7, 2023. It seems in our lives since then, mourning is a daily experience, lamenting the decline of rational thought and moral clarity in Western societies, particularly in response to rising antisemitism.
Tisha B’Av doesn’t just point to ancient tragedies; it shines a painful light on the suffering that continues in every corner of the world: war, injustice, loneliness, loss. It’s not hard to feel the weight of it all.
And then, just when the grief threatens to close in, along comes a whisper of comfort. Nachamu, nachamu ami— “Comfort, comfort My people,” says G-d. Not once, but twice. As if we might not hear it the first time. As if comfort needs to be repeated before it can be believed. As if we might miss it the first time. As if comfort requires repetition, insistence, community. This is the Shabbat of comfort—Shabbat Nachamu. named for that opening cry from Isaiah.
It comes right after Tisha B’Av, our day of deepest mourning. We sit in the ashes of history, of the Temples in Jerusalem, yes, but also of every heartbreak since. We mourn not just what happened then, but everything we still carry, exile, October 7th, trauma, losses too many to name. Some people connect most with the national grief of our people. Others hear in Eicha—the Book of Lamentations, a universal cry: the cruelty of war, the rawness of loss, the ache of injustice. And some of us feel the Earth itself grieving, scarred by what we’ve done in the name of progress. And then comes this Shabbat. Like an exhale after holding your breath too long.
“Comfort, comfort…” Not “move on.” Not “get over it.” Real comfort doesn’t skip the pain. It walks back into it, but with gentler eyes and softer steps. It’s what happens when someone sits beside you and doesn’t try to fix anything, just lets you not be alone.
This is the first of seven Shabbatot of consolation that lead us from the devastation of Tisha B’Av to the renewal of Rosh Hashanah. Seven weeks to let the heart stretch out again. Seven weeks of consolation. Seven weeks to begin healing, not by pretending nothing happened, but by carrying what did happen with more tenderness, finding strength in the aftermath. It’s about letting our sorrow soften us, not harden us.
There’s a spiritual rhythm here: we fall, we feel, we rise again. But rising doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten. It means we’ve integrated. We’ve let the sorrow carve out space for something deeper: compassion, clarity, love.
Comfort, true comfort, often begins in silence, when someone simply sits beside you without offering solutions, just presence. That’s the kind of healing the Torah invites us into now. A kind of quiet companionship with our pain, and slowly, a hand reaching toward hope.
The Torah introduces the word Nechama, comfort, in a very unexpected place: right before the flood. “And G-d regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it pained His heart.” The Hebrew word for regret, va’yinachem, shares its root with nechama. Strange, isn’t it? We usually think of comfort as something warm, soft, peaceful. But here, it’s tangled up with divine heartbreak and disappointment.
Rashi teaches that this “regret” wasn’t just sorrow. It was a shift in perspective. A turning point. So perhaps that’s what comfort really is. Not an escape from pain, but the courage to see differently. Not erasing what hurts but holding it with new eyes. Accepting what is, even when it isn’t what we’d hoped for. We often think of Hashem’s responses to our prayers as binary: yes or no. But this week’s parsha opens with Moshe begging to enter the Land of Israel, and Hashem says “no.” Not because He didn’t love Moshe. Not because the request wasn’t heartfelt. But because there was a larger plan at play, a story bigger than even Moshe could see.
Who among us hasn’t prayed for something with our whole being, only to feel that Hashem didn’t “answer”? The truth is, He did. We just didn’t like the answer. That “no” is hard to hear. We rail against it, we get angry, we feel abandoned. And yet, sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is to stop demanding our version of the story and start trusting His. Moshe accepted the “no” with grace. He turned toward the people, toward legacy, toward hope. That’s not weakness—it’s spiritual maturity. It’s a deep kind of trust.
In this same parsha, we also read the words that have shaped our faith for generations: Shema Yisrael… “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” That declaration of oneness, of unity in all things, even the painful ones, reminds us that everything we experience, even the unanswered prayers, are under His care.
And so, in a week that opens with pleading and continues with comfort, we’re called to hold both. To accept life as it is, and to grow within it. That’s not resignation. That’s resilience. Parasha Va’etchanan and Shabbat Nachamu, though deeply rooted in ancient Jewish tradition, hold lessons that resonate with modern principles of positive psychology. They highlight the power of resilience in tough times, the importance of appreciating our blessings, and the strength we draw from community and connection. These themes of hope and renewal offer a roadmap for cultivating psychological well-being and personal growth, especially when we’re navigating life’s challenges.
Shabbat Nachamu also reminds us that healing isn’t only emotional or spiritual, it’s physical too. The Torah says, “Guard yourself and guard your soul carefully,” and later, “You shall greatly guard your souls.” The sages read this as a clear call to take care of our health—not just so we can live longer, but so we can live better, with purpose.
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Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D., prepares a weekly D’var Torah for Young Israel of San Diego, where he and his family are members. They are also active members of Congregation Adat Yeshurun.