This week's portion presents a grim forecast of the Jews' fortune.  God says that following their entry into the land of Israel, the Jews would sin, resulting in their exile.  The Torah then states:  “And there you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.” (Deuteronomy 4:28)  This sentence may be descriptive of further sins the Jewish people would commit once driven out of Israel.  Yet, one could also look at it another way; not as a description of sin, but as part of the initial punishment Am Yisrael would bear.

Abarbanel describes the punishment as follows.  Once exiled the Jews would worship idols.  Although they would be aware of the false nature of these idols, they would be forced to serve them in order to protect themselves and save their lives.  To paraphrase Abarbanel, this is not mentioned as a sin but a punishment.  Despite their recognition in their hearts of their true God, they would have no choice but to pray to idols and lie about their true belief, a tortuous punishment indeed.

Biur agrees that the sentence is descriptive of punishment, yet sees the punishment differently than Abarbanel.  Biur suggests that in exile we would find ourselves in a foreign culture imbued with a value system contrary to Torah.  To restate Biur, there is no greater punishment than the soul drowning in the abomination of sin from which one cannot escape.  There is no worse soulful pain and punishment than recognizing the evil of one’s actions but not being able to withdraw—having become so accustomed to committing this sin (hergel aveirah).

Nehama Leibovitz points out that these two commentators reflect the challenges of their respective generations.  Abarbanel lived in Spain in the latter part of the 15th century during the period of the Spanish Inquisition.  It was then that the Catholic Church demanded that Jews worship their man-god, otherwise they would be killed.  Hence, he sees the punishment here as descriptive of what his generation was experiencing.  At the risk of being killed, Jews had no choice but to outwardly leave their faith.

Biur of Devarim was Hertz Hamburg who lived in the 18th century in Western Europe.  The challenge of his generation was the enlightenment which ensnared the Jewish people and caused rampant assimilation.  The threat was not physical but spiritual.  For Biur, our Torah speaks of Jews who leave the faith, not because their lives are threatened, but because they have been swept up in the temper of the times.

In Truth, Abarbanel and Biur speak of the physical and spiritual tasks that we face throughout history.  What both of these challenges have in common is the promise which immediately follows in the text that somehow against all odds we would extricate ourselves from that exile and return to God—in fulfillment of God’s covenant with the Jewish people.  As the Torah states, “and from there you will seek the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 4:29)

The season of Tisha B’Av not only commemorates our being forced into exile, but it forces us to focus on the low points and tragedies we have experienced as a people in the Diaspora.  With this seasonal backdrop, the challenges brought forth in this parsha become frighteningly clear.  And so, the Torah gives us a most appropriate reading for Shabbat Nahamu, the Shabbat of comfort—a portion that describes reality, yet emerges with the promise of seeking out God and returning to a path of connection and holiness.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Avi Weiss