Parshat Hashavua: July 30/31
Drash on Parshat Ekev
Rabbi Dean Shapiro
Beth Shalom, Auckland, New Zealand
“There is nothing as whole as a broken heart,” said the Kotsker Rebbe. Nor anything as human.
As Moshe Rabbeinu prepares the Israelites for the Promised Land (and himself for his own demise), he recounts the journey that brought them to this point of transition. He relives the moment when, descending the mountain, he spotted the Israelites in their ingratitude, and in fury smashed the original Tablets of the Law. He speaks of provocation, defiance and anger hot-as-lava, but behind the mask I hear silent sorrow. Forty years on, Moses’ grief remains, undimmed by the swirling sands of time. The rupture is still raw.
This is life: our hearts break, our hopes shatter. That’s what it means to be human.
The Israelite story could have ended there, at the foot of the mountain, the relationship between God and the people shattered beyond repair. But instead God offers them another set of Tablets, dutifully brought down to the camp, and placed in the ark next to the remnants of the first.
Our hearts get broken in life, and our hopes are shattered, but we pick ourselves up and start again. And we cherish what was shattered.
We are in the month of Av, days of destruction and comfort. Why must we endure despair to arrive at the High Holy Days? Because this is the human experience—we cannot regret, cannot grieve, cannot atone if we have not first been destroyed.
This is a Shabbat of n’chemta – comfort—the second of seven that follow Tisha b’Av. Following all the pain, all the pathos, the loss and the ache, we crave some respite, some solace. But instead Moses recounts the bitterness, the anger, the mistakes made along the way. He makes promises to his charges, but offers no n’chemta.
As much as we would like to like to put the destruction of Tisha b’Av behind us, to forget about it and move on, we cannot shift to the healing of the High Holy Days without this period of grief, of mourning. As much as we would like to put the hurt we have known in our lives behind us, to forget about it and move on, we cannot heal without grief, without mourning. We need to acknowledge our broken hearts. If Moses will not offer us a n’chemta, then we must make one for ourselves.
Before Elul comes, inviting us to introspection, we have these last days of Av in which to name our pain. We can look over our battle scars, touch those broken parts of us that will never fully heal. None of us is unbroken, but it is from this hurt that we grow. Surely, few of us would willingly pay the price for the knowledge we’ve received through pain, but it makes us who we are.
Just as the broken tablets are cherished, so should be our own wounds and hurts. Moses remembers how betrayed he felt, and how alone when his people imagined they did not need him. And I remember Ian, who died in this season 22 years ago. I remember the man I once aspired to be, and I remember that promise is forever unfulfilled.
As Av turns to Elul, let us run our fingers over the scars of our lives, retracing our losses and hurts, acknowledging our survival. For these have made us who we are, and with them we are wholly human.
