“Comfort My People. Comfort them.” (Yishayahu 40:1-2)

by HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

“Comfort My people, comfort them, says your G-d. Speak comfortingly to Jerusalem and cry to her, that her war service is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned. For she has received of the L-rd’s hand double for all her sins” (Yishayahu 40:1-2).

Malbim explains that the repetition of “Comfort My People, comfort them” serves to teach us about the redemption process of the Jewish People. There are two possible scenarios of redemption: either for redemption to come early, “hastened,” or for it to come “in its allotted time” (see Sanhedrin 98a on Yishayahu 60:22). The redemption can come early for one of two reasons: either because Israel have great merit, or due to Israel’s having been punished with a severity far beyond what they deserve. Either can lead to “hastened” redemption. Thus, when Israel “has received of the L-rd’s hand double for all her sins” (Yishayahu 40:2), redemption is hastened.

There is also a possibility of redemption “in its allotted time.” One way or another, Israel shall ultimately be redeemed. To what may this be compared? To a woman in her last months of pregnancy. There is a chance that the birth will come early, and there is a chance that it will come at full term, but one way or another, the birth is anticipated and the woman will bring a new soul into the world.

Ours is the generation of holocaust and rebirth, of double punishment. We were smitten with a long exile of close to two thousand years during which the Jewish People were beaten down to the dust, and at the end of that time, there came a terrible Holocaust. Such a generation deserves the comfort and consolation of hastened redemption. Indeed, with our own eyes, we see the Jewish People reaping that consolation, building the State of Israel as a strong country militarily and economically. We see clearly how “every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low, and the crooked made straight and the rough places flattened” (Yishayahu 40:4). Through the ingathering of the exiles and the building of the State of Israel, the day is not far off when we will merit as well that “the glory of the L-rd shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the L-rd has spoken it” (Ibid., v. 5). All of G-d’s promises to the Jewish People - from the very start and onwards - He shall fulfill. That is our comfort.

Looking forward to salvation,
With the Love of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael,
Shabbat Shalom.