Refuse to be consoled

Unless you're actually consoled

I worry that we go too easy on Jewish practices, texts and wisdom. I worry that we give them a break, a free pass, pretending that it’s enough, all while we remain more or less unmoved, emotionally uninvested, unstimulated, needs unmet. How much do we demand that these readings, practices and rituals genuinely move us, shake us up, evoke life from the depths of us, give us actual hope and clarity, actually bring us together, and yield real connection to the Source? Perhaps we have an agreement that we won’t ask too much from it if it doesn’t ask too much from us. Perhaps we worry that this is all there is, and if we demand more we will find there is nothing at all.

I’m reminded of a student from my MIT-adjacent days who “prayed” the afternoon prayer in about 45 seconds, soup to nuts. I asked him about it. He said something like, “I don’t want to think about it. I’m worried that if I think about it any deeper, I’ll stop doing it entirely.”

Here we are, in the third week of the “seven weeks of consolation.” Are you consoled? Were you hurt, offended, put off, disturbed, aggrieved or otherwise unsatisfied as you sat close to the earth on 9th Av and considered the loss and absence of the Temple and the consequences thereof, such that you need consolation? Did some ill wind cling to you like a rash that won’t go away? Perhaps you weren’t so bothered, so whatever thin soup passes for consolation is enough, and let’s just move on to the next milquetoast “holiday.”

Or maybe this particular revisiting of the Temple-destruction and the state in which it has left us has brought up feelings abandonment, frustration, anger, confusion, directionlessness, befuddlement, alienation, hopelessness or despair, and you really do need some sort of consolation, some kind of reassurance, some shift in perspective, and you’re worried that if you really allow yourself to feel and wonder like that, then you will be disappointed in the thin soup you anticipate receiving. Maybe you’re afraid to get into it like my MIT-adjacent friend.

This week’s haftarah - the 3rd of 7 haftarot of consolation - names it at the beginning. “You, impoverished, storm-tossed, unconsoled.” We can stop there. You had me at “storm-tossed.” It is a deep consolation to be acknowledge as storm-tossed and unconsoled. It is profoundly nourishing and powerful (and empowering) when your unmet need is validated. It is so deeply, deeply satisfying to be allowed to be unsatisfied. Isaiah dispenses with the stultifying formalities.

Job’s friends come to “console” him. That’s in Job 2:11. He refused their sub-par attempts at consolation. He would not accept consolation that failed to console, failed to offer a satisfying new perspective. It left him in a lurch, his life in shambles, impoverished and storm tossed, but he didn’t fall for their sham explanations. He didn’t even insist on getting an answer. He insisted on being unconsoled when he was unconsoled. And that honesty, that insistence, was all he had. It was enough.

Be unconsoled, my people, until you are consoled. Insist on the good stuff, the real stuff, the deep love and assurance that touches your inner heart. It is there. We won’t find it unless we insist on having it, which requires that we admit that we need it.