(Isaiah) What is Consolation (7 Weeks)
In the prophetic imagination, consolation is a super violent and theopolitical counter-reality. Other-worldly without being otherworldly is the liturgical view drawn from the 7 haftaroth of consolation recited in the synagogue on Shabbat between the fast day Tisha B’Av and the High Holidays. The haftaroth of consolation follow upon the 3 haftaroth of rebuke preceding the fast day which marks the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Temple. These haftaroth of consolation are drawn by the synagogue liturgy entirely from the great cosmic world-eye of Deutero-Isaiah. I have in this digest intentionally tried to bracket God. In the poetic place of the synagogue, place and transfiguration are the critical topoi of consolation. In the unreality of this visual universe, consolation is a jewel-like state of being crystalized upon the rock-like and immovable foundation-place of creation, a covenant-justice and promise of vindication in the world. Caught up in the pitch darkness of social suffering, consolation is overwhelming and unnatural light that transforms the suffering subject into a thing-like object of care. As figured by way of fantasy — the mode of consciousness in its future orientation– consolation are words in the meantime.
First Haftarah of Consolation (Shabbat Nachamu) (Creation) – Isaiah 40:1-26
Hertz, in his commentary, calls it a rhapsody. The first consolation is a rhapsody dominated by imperatives and questions that echo across space. The consolation orients voice in the four-fold of earth and sky, mortals and God. Consolation is the place of a dwelling in nature as a sure comfort for the people. The haftarah begins with the words “Nachamu, Nachamu Ami,” “comfort, comfort My people,” speak to the heart of Israel; a voice calling out to prepare a road or highway in the desert plains; flattening hills and mountains for the presence of God. One voice rings out: “Proclaim!” Another asks, “What shall I proclaim?” “All flesh is grass, All its goodness like flowers of the field.” See your dyadic God, the powerful sovereign-lord God appearing in might, a gentle shepherd of his flock. Standing over the nullity of the nations, the incomparable God is not an idol, a human artifact, but the creator of the universe and its measure. Do you not know? Have you not heard about God who founded the earth and spread out the skies like gauze, stretched out like a tent under which to dwell?
Second Haftarah of Consolation (Covenant Foundation) – Isaiah 49:14–51:3
Consolation is the covenant place of justice and vindication. In the second consolation, as arranged by the liturgist, the prophet assumes his role as the people’s advocate. His is a skilled tongue to know how to speak timely words to the weary with whom no one can compete in judgment. In this picture of consolation, the land is restored as a place full of children. Brought back to their mother by kings, she wears them like jewels. Consolation is this covenant-contract, the vindication of this woman before the enemy of her children, afoundational justice, the rock and quarry from which the suffering subject is hewn. In this consolation, there is no shame. In truth, the suffering subject is comforted of all her ruins, her wilderness made like Eden, her desert transformed into a garden, a place of gladness and joy, thanksgiving and music.
Third Haftarah of Consolation (Crystal City) – Isaiah 54:11–55:5
Consolation is a hard-bright and gleaming place, building stones of carbuncles, foundations of sapphires, battlements of rubies, gates of precious stones, an encircling wall of gems. Established through righteousness and safe from oppression, central to the doctrine of consolation is the legal motif which repeats itself in this reading. Expressed in the direct second voice to the suffering subject, consolation is the promise and confidence that the weapons against you will not succeed, that every tongue that contends with you at judgment will fail. The suffering people are no longer unhappy and storm-tossed. Consolation is the happiness of children, recompense of food without money, wine and milk without cost, everlasting covenant and God’s enduring faithfulness.
Fourth Haftarah of Consolation (Return) – Isaiah 51:12–52:12
Consolation is vindication and ungentle power, the return of ransomed children, joy, the gladness and comfort that comes from God who is not mortal. Consolation means that the rage of an oppressor counts for nothing. God takes from the people the cup of reeling, the bowl and puts the cup of wrath in the hands of their tormentors. Awakening from a nightmare, the suffering city clothes herself in robes of splendor and majesty. Consolation is God’s return to the ruins of Jerusalem, the victory of our God that is manifest in a vision of God’s holy arm in the sight of the nations.
Fifth Haftarah of Consolation (Earth) – Isaiah 54:1-10
Consolation is the forgetting made possible by the promise of mercy and kindness in place. Consolation is the cry and joy of vindication, the ungentle vindication of an infertile woman and abandoned wife, an enlarged dwelling place for children spreading out to the right and left, the dispossession of nations and the peopling of desolate towns. Consolation is forgetting fear and reproach and shame, the guarantee of mercy and kindness, the consolation married to God, whose face is hidden but for a moment, now no longer angry, whose kindness is infinite and immovable. Consolation is the place of the covenant of God’s peace, the Holy One of Israel who will be called God of all the Earth.
Sixth Haftarah of Consolation (Light) – Isaiah 60:1-22
Consolation is material blessing folding into pure light. Consolation is saturated in the image of material good, the wealth of nations passing over to the suffering city, which is itself covered by dust-clouds of camels bearing gold and frankincense, silver and gold. Free from cries of “Violence,” “Wrack and Ruin,” the broken city is now magnificent, the “City of God, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” In this penultimate chiaroscuro of consolation, the prophet imagines a terrible darkness that covers the earth that frames an otherworldly light that shines over the suffering city at the center of the picture. Consolation is luminous glory. The suffering city begins to see and glow, her heart throbs and thrills. The sun and moon will never set, their own light overwhelmed by the unsurpassable brightness of an everlasting light, your days of mourning at an end.
Seventh Haftarah of Consolation (Object of Care) – Isaiah 61:10–63:9
In the final haftorah, consolation has become object-like. The overpowering divine light is now garbed, clothed in blood-stained crimsoned garments, majestic in attire. The final consolation is emergent victory and renown shooting up like seed in a garden in the presence of all the nations. Full of rage and anger, consolation is mercy and great kindness. In the prophecy, the suffering subject is also garbed, clothed in garments of triumph, wrapped in a robe of victory, like a bridegroom adorned with a turban or a bride bedecked with her finery. Never again to be called “Forsaken,” or “Desolate,” consolation is to be called “I delight in her” and your land “Espoused.” Consolation is to be held and cared for. The suffering subject has become an object: a glorious crown in the hand of God, a royal diadem in the palm of your God.
