Parshas Eikev: 5785

“He will love you, bless you, and multiply you…” (Devarim 7:13)

The Three Weeks are behind us, and the Yamim Noraim aren’t here yet. So, it’s party time. Concerts, barbecues, hiking in the mountains. Now’s the break between crisis and repentance. A time to breathe. But what’s the proper perspective on the season? (Rabbi Yaacov Haber, TorahLab)

Once upon a time, when I still had an all-girls family, we had girly toys everywhere: dolls, carriages, dollhouses — you name it.

Then, suddenly, our “bechor” was born and we needed boy toys. Trucks, cars, and balls took over.

The Three Weeks are tough, especially when used correctly to commemorate the punishments, pain, and tragedy that have afflicted us for generations.

Now we’ve started a new season: The Seven Weeks of Comfort. We read haftarahs about the closeness between us and Hashem. In our parshah, we read about the comfort of knowing Hashem will bestow upon us such love when we follow His ways.

When these seven weeks end, we enter into two weeks of teshuvah before Rosh Hashanah. So in this quarter of the year, there’s three weeks of crisis, seven weeks of comfort, and two weeks of teshuvah.

But the order’s a bit strange. The Three Weeks represent our violation of our relationship with Hashem. Logically, the natural follow-up for punishment should be teshuvah, indicating we got the message and we’re fixing what needs to be fixed. Only then, once Hashem accepts our teshuvah, we should enter the comfort zone and eat pizza in Woodbourne. Yet our order is pain, comfort, and then teshuvah. Why?

On a visit to the States when Baby Boy was two, my mother presented him with a rag doll dressed in overalls and a baseball cap, with just the right softness for snuggling.