Friends,
I am just preparing for my last Shabbat in London before returning next week to Boulder with our old-new Torah! The Shabbat after the painful day of Tisha b'Av is called Shabbat Nachamu, the Shabbat of comfort and consolation after the desolation and trauma of the day that commemorates the horrors of our history. It was a hard Tisha b'Av this year, with Israel in such turmoil and the fear and uncertainty of the consequences of the passing of the judicial overhaul bill in the Knesset. You can read the Conservative Movement's response here.
So much in the world feels broken and vulnerable, with record breaking heat in so many regions in the world, political and civil unrest and so much more, that we hardly need a day of mourning and fasting to remind us, though there is a deep power to the Jewish calendar and its poignant questions and challenges. At the end of Tisha b'Av last night, I participated in an amazing screening and discussion of The Tattooed Torah with its producer, Bonai member Lisa Effres, and director, Marc Bennett, who are here in London. It was a powerful and deeply appropriate evening in response to this beautiful film about one of the Czech Torah scrolls and its journey from surviving the Holocaust to London to a Jewish school in Chicago. On Monday, I will be going to The Westminster Synagogue with Robert and Sara Sturtz, who have been so instrumental in all of this, my mother and sister and a film crew, including Marc and Lisa, to pick up our own, very special Czech Torah scroll, #335, originally from the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague and soon to find its new home in Boulder. This whole journey has been so rich and unbelievable, and the fact that we will be flying home with a Torah and bringing it to Bonai Shalom on Tuesday afternoon is such a fitting way to extend the blessings of hope and consolation of this Shabbat Nachamu. The continuity of the Torah, our most treasured possession throughout the generations is, indeed, a source of comfort and a symbol of resilience. Our stories, along with the joy and the sorrow, the tears and the laughter, are all mingled with the the stories and teachings of the Torah, like the dancing white spaces between the black letters.
This Shabbat, the parsha Va'etchanan from Deuteronomy, includes both the shema and the second version of the Ten Commandments, read all over the world from Torah scrolls, each with their own history, their own story to tell and each reminding us of our most important prayer and moral teachings. "Nachamu, nachamu ami, says the Haftarah from Isaiah chapter 40, comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God." The promise, the hope, the dream that after the loss and the destruction and despair, there is comfort, there is consolation - in the continuation of our personal and collective stories. May we receive all the strength and comfort that we need and for which we yearn!
We look forward to seeing some of you on Tuesday as we bring our Torah to its new home!
Shabbat Nachamu Blessings,
Rabbi Marc
PS - look for announcements about events and celebrations of our Torah!
