Coming Home

In times of deepest angst we wonder if we are alone.  That would be the final, unbearable indignity.  To be alone in moments of anguish is to feel abandoned.  Perhaps no other sensation is quite so insidious as it gnaws on the bones of insecurity, worthlessness and helplessness.  Who has not cured by the proverbial chicken soup?  Chicken soup is someone’s attempt to cook hearty warm food filled with taam (flavor) for you.  Just for you.  Any gift given so freely contains the seeds of healing.  No wonder chicken soup mends all wounds.  Its delivery says “I care about you.”  You are not alone.

Since we do not know the minute of another person’s anguish we call them often which further indicates our love toward them.  More times than I can count, congregants have told me during the week of their shiva that the most difficult part of mourning was at six pm.  That was the time when they spoke every day.  The utter pain of not hearing their mother’s voice over the telephone at six was terrible.

Reading back over thousands of years the prophet Jeremiah states, "And Zion said Hashem has forsaken and forgotten Me." Jeremiah has taken the “chicken soup” axiom and has found a novel approach to life.  

I have often wondered why God created us at all.  It makes no sense to me that perfection (God) requires anything else.  The only answer to this conundrum is that creation was an act of absolute love.  That God created the world and everything on it must have been an ultimate act of giving.  What happens when we reave ourselves from God?  Perhaps this is what Jeremiah meant.  “We are not alone,” wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel.  But more, tells the prophet, we are not alone in our feelings.

The Rabbis of the Talmud (Brachot 6B) share with us a remarkable insight in a no-less-remarkable tale.  Just as we go to Shul in order to daven, celebrate a simha, or milestone so too, God goes to shul.  God is a part of His people and is present with us in all places and throughout time.  We have services often and publicly announce that they are taking place.  The Rabbis are telling us is that God reads the same announcement.  He comes in anticipation of services.

Question: What happens when the giver finds herself abandoned?  You take the time to make the dinner, prepare the soup, make the call and there is no response?  This is what the Rabbis are indicating to us in this strange passage.  What does God feel?

In the same passage cited above, Jeremiah quotes Hashem as saying, "Can a mother ever forget her child?  Even if she could, I will never forget you!"(49:15).  As if this is not enough he adds, " I have engraved you on My palm." 


So once again the summer closes with cooler breezes and a return to old sensibilities.  Minds turn to less ephemeral things and the beginning of this return is marked by the New Year.  There we will greet old friends, companions and somewhere in the rear of the Sanctuary waits another for the child’s arrival home.