Shabbat Nachamu

I am excited to be leading Torah study and chanting Torah on this Shabbat. Va'etchanan is a wonderful Torah portion, which includes Moses pleading with God, Moses referred to as "at" (the feminine form of you singular in Hebrew), the second version of the ten commandments, and the first paragraph of Sh'ma among a plethora of other interesting topics.

However, what takes the cake this week is the Haftarah. It is the first Haftarah of consolation after Tisha B'Av, the commemoration of almost every calamity that has befallen the Jews so far. The first of seven such Haftarot, this one orders comfort, a sort of יהיה טוב for Biblical times. Anyway, it is my favorite Haftarah because it means and can mean so much. It names the Shabbat, not the Torah portion. I take my blog's name from it's first three words (Nachamu is repeated for emphasis).