Parasha Thoughts
By Rabbi Avraham Moeinzadeh
Comfort comfort my nation says your God.
After three weeks of mourning the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash, this week we start seven weeks of consolation. Every Shabbat we recite another portion of Navi in the Haftarah which unlike other Haftarot throughout the year doesn’t necessarily have a connection to the Parasha, rather its purpose is to comfort the Jews.
Perek Shirah associates the first Pasuk of this week’s Haftarah – Nachamu- to a bird called Retzifi.( The Retzifi is not exactly identified to us, so the original Hebrew name is being used in this Dvar Torah.) As we all know, the song that is attributed to every creature in Perek Shirah correlates to a certain characteristic of that creature and tells us the importance of those characteristics.
The correlation of Nachamu and Retzifi, says Harav Pinchas Zabichi, is the strategy that Retzifi uses to survive through the winter. Retzifis are not migrating birds and in order to survive the cold days of winter they form a colony and crowd together closely so they can maintain each other’s body temperature.
This characteristic of Retzifi teaches the Jewish people how to pursue comfort. Although in galut it is not as easy to maintain our Jewish values as it was before the galut, what makes us merit the geula is to keep our faith intact and help one each other to survive the cold night of galut.
Shabbat Shalom.