Tonight is a noteworthy spot in the Jewish flow of time. It is Shabbat Chazon, the sabbath before Tisha B’Av – the 9th of Av – the day that remembers the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem 2600 years ago, and again 2000 years ago. It is called Shabbat Chazon, the Sabbath of Vision, because in it we read the opening of the Book of Isaiah, which starts chazon Yishayahu ben Amotz – “the vision of Isaiah son of Amotz.”
And it is, at least at first, a bleak vision if ever there was one, pointing to the wickedness of the people, the corruption of the politicians, the indifference to justice. Poor, frustrated Isaiah, practically begs the people, “Learn to do good; devote yourselves to justice; help those who have been wronged; uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow.” All the classic justice items of Torah. Isaiah predicting destruction if things don’t change. Isaiah delivering a message that does not seem terribly far-fetched in this moment.
But for all his hard words, Isaiah believes in change. He insists on it. You can change, he says. “If you do,” he says, “if you pay attention, then you will enjoy the good things this earth has to offer!”
This is a tiny bit of the Isaiah text that we read on Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat before Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av.
But tonight is also Tisha B’Av itself. The 9th of Av, and like the 17th of Tammuz three weeks ago, Shabbat has the ability to nudge our grief back a day; our mourning for the fallen Temple, for the broken walls of Jerusalem, for the end of Judaism as we once knew it, before there was a Judaism as we now know it.
Tonight is Tisha B’Av, although it will be tomorrow night that we will mark it, right here in this room at 8pm, with chanting from Eichah, the Book of Lamentations. We will step into the shoes of our ancestors and grieve the loss of the Temples. But also the many catastrophes that have befallen the Jewish people – all of which our tradition has decided happened on the 9th of Av. The Expulsion from Spain 500 years ago. The massacres of the Jews of Ashkenaz by crusaders a thousand years ago.
And we will also explore our own grief – the heaviness of this world that we are all holding. The consumption and exploitation, the indifference to injustice, the greed, the syphoning off of resources, the disappearance of species, the wobbling of democracy. We would have grieved all of this tonight, but Shabbos.
Tomorrow night is soon enough.
So this crossroads tonight: It is Shabbat Chazon, the Sabbath of Vision. It is the 9th of Av. And it is also Shabbat Devarim, where we begin reading the Book of Deuteronomy, the last one of the Five Books of Moses. It is where Moshe begins his final speech to the people, reiterating everything that happened to them since they left Egypt – the journeys, the battles, the rebellions, the punishments, the blessings, the commandments. Repeating all these things is not just rhetorical flourish from a departing leader; not just George Washington in “Hamilton” sharing words one last time. The people he is speaking to are not the ones he set out with. There has been a near-complete turnover. The generation of the Exodus is gone; these are their children and grandchildren. If any of them were present at Mt. Sinai, they were babies.
So this is Moshe trying to compile it all, integrate it, tell it, sell it, impress the importance of it. He knows that the Israelites will not experience that epic a journey ever again (although we have experienced many epic journeys since) and the story of it will have to replace the experience of it. Storytelling will replace physical memory. And he leads the way. The book opens:
אֵ֣לֶּה הַדְּבָרִ֗ים אֲשֶׁ֨ר דִּבֶּ֤ר מֹשֶׁה֙ אֶל־כׇּל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל
These are the words that Moshe spoke to all of Israel...
בְּעֵ֖בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֑ן
on the far side of the Jordan...
בַּמִּדְבָּ֡ר בָּֽעֲרָבָה֩
in the wilderness, on the plain...
מ֨וֹל ס֜וּף
across from Suf...
בֵּֽין־פָּארָ֧ן וּבֵֽין־תֹּ֛פֶל וְלָבָ֥ן וַחֲצֵרֹ֖ת וְדִ֥י זָהָֽב׃
between Paran and Tofel and Lavan and Chatzerot and Di Zahav.
Before Moshe speaks, it seemed important to lay the scene, to describe the location with specificity, even though many of those are places whose locations are not known, places which oddly were not mentioned in the recitation of the 42 stations of the journey in last week’s portion.
Nonetheless, here we are, here Moshe is, hemmed in by these mysterious places, about to open his mouth to offer his last words. This great inhale before we enter the Promised Land. And we begin reading it every year right now as we step into mourning for the destruction, for the end of the Promised Land’s promise.
Moshe is giving this speech not from the Mountain, like he did when he brought down the commandments. He is on the aravah, the plateau, the plain. But aravah is an interesting word, not used often in Torah. It almost always is used in the phrase arvot moav – the plains of Moab. But sometimes in Torah it is a kind of tree – a willow tree, like in the lulav at Sukkot-time. Sometimes it is a cloud. It is arguably the same root as erev – the evening. And erav rav – the mixed multitude of people who came with the Israelites out of Egypt and cast their lot with ours and who are, presumably, also our ancestors.
Evening, cloud, willow, plain, mixed multitude. What these things have in common might be a kind of threading. Evening is where day threads with night; the willow’s small leaves break up light, alternating leaf and light over and over. And cloud – a mix of air and water. Even the plain – the thin threadlike line that separates earth and sky. Moshe stands in this place of mixing, of threading, where he takes it as his job to interweave the experience of the past with the identity of the future, by using story as the aravah, the in-between. He tells the people their story, and it floats over them like a cloud, it pours through and among them like light through willow leaves. It turns the loose mix of people into One People.
Tonight is a night of mixing, of threading. We hold the sorrow of our lost Temple and our lost life in ancient times. We hold the sorrow of our time, the weight of it that we know so well. And that heaviness is filtered through with the light and spaciousness and joy of Shabbat.
So here in the erev, in the erev shabbat, in the aravah, in this spot where everything seems to be mixing, we notice that the burden is now lighter, the road wider, our breath easier. Min hametzar – from the narrows we called out. And we are answered with breadth. We were answered with breath.
Featured: Min Hametzar, Psalm 118:5; Setting: Rabbi Shefa Gold.