We have spent the last three weeks of the Jewish calendar remembering destruction.
Not only the destruction of the ancient Temples, but every destruction that echoes through Jewish history and through our own lives. Tisha B'Av reminds us that communities break. Trust breaks. Relationships break. Institutions break. Sometimes because of forces beyond our control. Sometimes because of the ways we fail one another.
Jewish tradition is remarkably honest about this. It never asks us to skip over grief. It never asks us to pretend that loss isn't real.
But this Shabbat, something changes.
This week begins the Shiva d'Nechemta – the Seven Weeks of Consolation. For seven weeks, all the way until Rosh HaShanah, the prophets invite us on a different journey. The first words we hear in this cycle, which began last week’s haftarah reading, are Isaiah's:
נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי
Nachamu, nachamu ami
"Comfort, [yes, please] comfort My people," says God. (Isaiah 40:1)
I've often wondered why there are seven weeks of consolation but only one day of Tisha B'Av. Perhaps because destruction can happen in a day. Reconciliation rarely does.
These seven weeks aren't simply about feeling better. They are about learning how to become people who can rebuild after heartbreak. They invite us to tell the truth about what has happened, to mourn what has been lost, and then to ask what faithfulness requires of us now.
I think our community knows something about that.
The last six months have changed Kadima.
There has been grief. There has been conflict. There has been uncertainty. Some people have drawn closer. Others have stepped back. We have all, in one way or another, been shaped by what has happened among us.
The temptation after a difficult season is either to move on too quickly or to become stuck in it – to replay old hurts, rehearse old arguments, or quietly withdraw from one another. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we often choose another path altogether: we avoid. We tell ourselves that if we don't bring up the difficult conversation, perhaps time will smooth things over on its own.
Jewish tradition imagines something more courageous: Not leaning toward conflict for conflict's sake, but leaning toward one another, sometimes in disagreement, but always in truth. The ability and willingness to stay in difficult conversations a little longer is held up for us to strive toward.
To listen before assuming.
To speak honestly before resentment hardens.
To trust that relationships are strengthened not because conflict never happens, but because we refuse to abandon one another when it does.
The Board has begun a series called “Reconstructing Kadima.” I find that name deeply resonant – not simply because it describes institutional work, but because it names a deeply Jewish practice.
Reconstruction is not pretending nothing broke. It is not nostalgia for what once was. It is gathering the pieces honestly, asking what still carries life, and choosing together what we will build next.
Isaiah later imagines exactly this kind of community in the third to last line of our Yom Kippur haftarah: "Your people shall rebuild the ancient ruins, raising foundations from generation to generation. You shall be called repairers of the breach, restorers of paths to dwell in." (Isaiah 58:12)
Isaiah doesn't say we become people who erase the breach. We become people who repair it. Both the breach and the repair are essential parts of the story.
Kadima has never simply been a building, a budget, or a board. Kadima began in living rooms. It has always been a web of relationships, woven over decades by people willing to show up for one another and for the work of building a Judaism rooted in justice, joy, learning, courage, and compassion.
A web isn't strong because every strand is unbreakable. A web is strong because there are so many connections that when one strand weakens, others hold. And when a strand breaks, someone chooses to weave another.
Perhaps that is our work over these next seven weeks:
To weave.
To reach out to someone we haven't spoken with.
To ask a hard question with genuine curiosity instead of accusation.
To offer an apology.
To receive one.
To stay present when it would be easier to disappear.
To recommit ourselves—not because everything is resolved, but because this community is worth the work.
By the time we arrive at Rosh HaShanah, I don't hope simply that we feel consoled. I hope we will have become a community that knows how to console. A community that has practiced telling the truth with compassion. A community that has practiced remaining connected through disagreement. A community that has remembered that the strength of Kadima has never rested in any one person or any one moment, but in the countless strands of relationship that bind us together.
May these seven weeks become, for all of us, not an escape from what has happened, but a sacred season of reconstruction.
May we have the courage to face what is true, the tenderness to hold one another through it, and the wisdom to rebuild something even more deeply rooted in the values that brought us together in the first place.
Toward repair, and shabbat shalom,
R’ David
Not only the destruction of the ancient Temples, but every destruction that echoes through Jewish history and through our own lives. Tisha B'Av reminds us that communities break. Trust breaks. Relationships break. Institutions break. Sometimes because of forces beyond our control. Sometimes because of the ways we fail one another.
Jewish tradition is remarkably honest about this. It never asks us to skip over grief. It never asks us to pretend that loss isn't real.
But this Shabbat, something changes.
This week begins the Shiva d'Nechemta – the Seven Weeks of Consolation. For seven weeks, all the way until Rosh HaShanah, the prophets invite us on a different journey. The first words we hear in this cycle, which began last week’s haftarah reading, are Isaiah's:
נַחֲמוּ נַחֲמוּ עַמִּי
Nachamu, nachamu ami
"Comfort, [yes, please] comfort My people," says God. (Isaiah 40:1)
I've often wondered why there are seven weeks of consolation but only one day of Tisha B'Av. Perhaps because destruction can happen in a day. Reconciliation rarely does.
These seven weeks aren't simply about feeling better. They are about learning how to become people who can rebuild after heartbreak. They invite us to tell the truth about what has happened, to mourn what has been lost, and then to ask what faithfulness requires of us now.
I think our community knows something about that.
The last six months have changed Kadima.
There has been grief. There has been conflict. There has been uncertainty. Some people have drawn closer. Others have stepped back. We have all, in one way or another, been shaped by what has happened among us.
The temptation after a difficult season is either to move on too quickly or to become stuck in it – to replay old hurts, rehearse old arguments, or quietly withdraw from one another. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we often choose another path altogether: we avoid. We tell ourselves that if we don't bring up the difficult conversation, perhaps time will smooth things over on its own.
Jewish tradition imagines something more courageous: Not leaning toward conflict for conflict's sake, but leaning toward one another, sometimes in disagreement, but always in truth. The ability and willingness to stay in difficult conversations a little longer is held up for us to strive toward.
To listen before assuming.
To speak honestly before resentment hardens.
To trust that relationships are strengthened not because conflict never happens, but because we refuse to abandon one another when it does.
The Board has begun a series called “Reconstructing Kadima.” I find that name deeply resonant – not simply because it describes institutional work, but because it names a deeply Jewish practice.
Reconstruction is not pretending nothing broke. It is not nostalgia for what once was. It is gathering the pieces honestly, asking what still carries life, and choosing together what we will build next.
Isaiah later imagines exactly this kind of community in the third to last line of our Yom Kippur haftarah: "Your people shall rebuild the ancient ruins, raising foundations from generation to generation. You shall be called repairers of the breach, restorers of paths to dwell in." (Isaiah 58:12)
Isaiah doesn't say we become people who erase the breach. We become people who repair it. Both the breach and the repair are essential parts of the story.
Kadima has never simply been a building, a budget, or a board. Kadima began in living rooms. It has always been a web of relationships, woven over decades by people willing to show up for one another and for the work of building a Judaism rooted in justice, joy, learning, courage, and compassion.
A web isn't strong because every strand is unbreakable. A web is strong because there are so many connections that when one strand weakens, others hold. And when a strand breaks, someone chooses to weave another.
Perhaps that is our work over these next seven weeks:
To weave.
To reach out to someone we haven't spoken with.
To ask a hard question with genuine curiosity instead of accusation.
To offer an apology.
To receive one.
To stay present when it would be easier to disappear.
To recommit ourselves—not because everything is resolved, but because this community is worth the work.
By the time we arrive at Rosh HaShanah, I don't hope simply that we feel consoled. I hope we will have become a community that knows how to console. A community that has practiced telling the truth with compassion. A community that has practiced remaining connected through disagreement. A community that has remembered that the strength of Kadima has never rested in any one person or any one moment, but in the countless strands of relationship that bind us together.
May these seven weeks become, for all of us, not an escape from what has happened, but a sacred season of reconstruction.
May we have the courage to face what is true, the tenderness to hold one another through it, and the wisdom to rebuild something even more deeply rooted in the values that brought us together in the first place.
Toward repair, and shabbat shalom,
R’ David
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