Bad news, but in a good way

There is a convention in chanting Torah that says you cannot end your section on a sad or tragic line. Instead, you have to end your aliyah on something more palatable. This is called a nechemta, from the word for consolation or comfort. Rabbi Liz PG Hirsch, CEO of the Women of Reform Judaism, explains that “A nechemta is not the mirror image of what came before, it is not a mountain peak to a valley of the shadow of death. It is a small uplift. A moving forward. A positive note.” The end of Bereishit could have certainly been bleak. We open the portion, the whole Torah, in fact, with the light of creation, flowering, growing, and all manner of diversity and beauty. Then things take a turn and by the end of the parasha. Not only does God have regrets, but plans to wipe out all life: “humans together with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky.” (Gen. 6:7) Because we cannot end it like this, the very next verse, “But Noah found favor with God” gets added as the nechemta.

Instead of ending with the bleak promise of destruction of the entire world, it ends with a mention of Noah, who is the lone bright spot in the darkness that God sees. The challenge that is given to us, so early in our text, is to make our way to comfort. Looking at the whole text, it makes no sense. The Torah picks up in the next portion with the story of Noah. The chapters and verses were invented by a Christian theologian who had a bad memory but even the traditional Jewish division is a bit odd. Unless we remember the rule about the nechemta. Rabbi Hirsch also notes that sometimes it takes a lot of verses to get to nechemta.

We find nechemtas in more than just the Torah portions. My colleague and friend Rabbi Esther Hugenholz says that “A nechemta is a rabbinic offering of comfort or consolation in the form of a sermon or teaching. It is meant to frame difficult truths, soften moral injury and uplift hearts.” Our world is full of those things right now.

Is there a nechemta for violence and death? Maybe that peace always comes and we are not helpless in bringing it. Is there a nechemta for the hatred and bigotry that has invaded so much of our discourse and our world? Perhaps that while it seems the capacity for hatred is infinite, it is not, while our capacity to love is. But a nechemta is a comfort, not a solution.

The solution is the work we can do in the world. Just as a nechemta can offer us relief in the text, it can bring relief in our lives. Not every story has a happy ending. Not all things conclude as we wish they would. But we are not forced to settle for that. We do not have the power to change the past, but we can keep moving into the future. A little bit of compassion can go a long way. It might make the difference for someone, or might be enough for us to not despair, and instead to take up the struggle and work to make the world a better place.

There was little that the people and creatures of the Earth could do when God decided to destroy it – except maybe for repenting and changing their ways. As for us, there is a lot we can do. Our Social Action Committee has a variety of programs and projects that do good in our community. Our interfaith programs help us reach out to our neighbors and create bonds at a time when so many people are trying to frighten and divide us. Every week we read the names of people who are sick and those who have died and we do so publicly, so that the people whose loved ones are on the lists are not alone.

In Isaiah, God tells the people: אָנֹכִ֧י אָנֹכִ֛י ה֖וּא מְנַחֶמְכֶ֑ם
I, I am the One who comforts you!
What ails you that you fear
Man who must die,
Mortals who fare like grass? (Isa. 51:12)

Commentator Adin Steinsaltz says if we fear mortals, it is because we have forgotten the source of our strength. Many of us draw our strength from God. All of us here, though, can draw strength from one another. And that includes comforting one another. Noah’s name, Noach in Hebrew comes from the same root as nechamta, and means comfort. Perhaps when we read the line
וְנֹ֕חַ מָ֥צָא חֵ֖ן בְּעֵינֵ֥י יְהֹוָֽה׃
We can read it not as “And Noah found favor in God’s eyes,” but “And God found favor in comfort.” Knowing that there was something good, in the form of Noah, God was comforted.

Let us look to the comforts in our lives. Who are the people who support us? Who gives us relief and eases our burdens? Who do each of us support? What more can we do? We cannot take away all of the problems of the world, we cannot make life perfect or sometimes even easy. But we can make it better. Even if it does not all end up exactly as we would like, we are alway working towards better, and that is a great comfort and in that, we end on a nechemta.