The month of Av. An in-between time. Holiday time. Fiery and furious. Silent and salubrious. It is an in-between time—a season with the potential for stillness and contemplation, holding within it both danger and joy. The ninth day of the month brings mourning and reminders of destruction. As Rabbi Debra J. Robbins writes in New Each Day: “Always, a cry deep within, a question without an answer: Eichah, how?” Rationalisation does not cure grief. While Tishah B’Av is a day of collective mourning for the cyclical disasters that have befallen our people, it is difficult to ignore the personal losses that each of us carries. At such moments, the religious Jew seeks God. Our Torah portion speaks powerfully of both the revealed and the hidden aspects of the Divine: “You heard the sound of words but perceived no shape—nothing but a voice.” (Deuteronomy 4:12) No form, only the sound of words. Words that become memory. Rabbi Dalia Marx, in From Time to Time: Journeys in the Jewish Calendar, captures the essence of memory in this beautiful reflection: For just a moment I will stop to consider the mountains of memories, the false hopes, the insults seared deep, the moments of lost holiness. This time I won’t rush. I will stop—even if just for a moment— I will stop at the narrow place until another feeling sprouts. And it will sprout within me, without delay, and I will know that anything is possible. I will know that anything is possible. Ellen Frankel, in The Five Books of Miriam, offers another way of understanding God’s presence: The Sages in Our Own Time Teach: Theologians speak of two dimensions of the Divine: transcendence and immanence. Ancient gods were believed to inhabit an intermediate realm between these two dimensions—transcendent yet limited, immanent yet not intimate. Miriam the Prophet elaborates: The God of the Torah expands both these boundaries. YHVH is both Ruler of the Universe and “close at hand... whenever we call” (Deuteronomy 4:7). To speak about God as transcendent is to point beyond human experience: God as Creator of heaven and earth, vaster than time and space, beyond our imagination. To speak about the Divine as immanent is to meet God “face-to-face”: in nature, in godly people, and in our own hearts. Throughout history, as we have faced difficult and dangerous times, we have sought hope in God. Sara Copia Sullam (1592–1641), who hosted many of the leading Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals of Venice, knew something of suffering and misunderstanding. After being accused of heresy, she successfully defended herself, yet this prayer suggests the wound remained. In Women Speak to God: The Prayers and Poems of Jewish Women, she writes: My Inmost Hope O Lord, you know my inmost hope and thought, You know whenever, before your judgment throne, I shed salt tears and uttered many a moan, ‘Twas not for vanities that I besought. O turn on me your look with mercy fraught, And see how envious malice makes me groan! The pall upon my heart by error thrown Remove; illumine me with your radiant thought. At truth let not the wicked scorner mock. O You who breathe in me a spark divine, The lying tongue’s deceit with silence blight. Protect me from its venom, You, my Rock, And show the spiteful slanderer by this sign That You will shield me with Your endless light. The comfort that comes through a relationship with God humbles us and sustains us. That is the message of this moment. Shabbat Nachamu—the Sabbath of Comfort. Our calling is not to dwell forever in anger or mourning, but to live and experience joy. It is to help ourselves and others celebrate. It is to seek goodness. A beautiful project from the Hebrew Union College Ensemble, under the leadership of Cantor Rabbi Shani Ben-Or, presents a musical and spiritual trilogy through the months of Av, Elul, and Tishri. Among its offerings is Adrabah, a prayer for this season attributed to Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, one of the great eighteenth-century rebbes of the Chasidic movement. It speaks directly to our search for goodness: It offers a humble and practical path toward repair: to begin with ourselves. To see another person’s virtues before their shortcomings, to listen before passing judgment, and to speak to one another with honesty, sensitivity, and respect. The prayer concludes: Please, Place within our hearts the gift of seeing the goodness in one another, the strengths of each person rather than their flaws. May our words to one another be honest, kind, and pleasing in Your sight. Let no trace of hatred take root in our hearts, one person against another, heaven forbid. Strengthen us in our love for You. For You know what lies within us: that all we seek, all we do, is to bring You joy. Amen. May this be Your will. In these in-between days of Av, may we find the courage to pause, to remember, to mourn what has been lost, and to allow comfort to enter our hearts. May we seek the goodness in one another, hear the quiet voice of the Divine, and become people who bring comfort, hope, and joy into our world.