Do You Trust Me?

by Rabbi Jared Saks
August 19, 2005

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In the heart of Tokyo exists a warehouse of honesty, a collection of a people’s trust in one another. Annually, Japanese citizens turn in three hundred thousand umbrellas to Tokyo’s central lost and found. These umbrellas, found on subways, under tables in restaurants, and left in hotel rooms, will likely never return to their rightful owners. Getting the umbrellas back to their owners, though, is not the point. The point is that when you lose something in Japan it does not become a game of “finders keepers, losers weepers.”

Though umbrellas are the items most commonly turned in, the people of Tokyo return everything they find. Last year, twenty-four million dollars in lost cash was handed over to lost-and-found and subsequently returned to the very grateful people who had lost it. Tokyo functions as though it were a small town in which everybody knows everyone else. They look out for one another.

From a very young age, Japanese schoolchildren learn the word oniyati, empathy. In the case of losing something, the schoolchildren are instructed to consider how the other person will feel when he discovers his loss. There is an expectation in Japanese society that the stranger beside you would help you if you needed help. Because of this, you have the obligation to help him too.

Our Torah portion this week begins, “Va-etchannan… I pleaded…,” as Moses pleads with God to help him. Moses wishes to be allowed into the Promised Land. God, however, refuses to listen and turns down Moses’ request for help. Moses tells us, “The Eternal said to me, ‘Enough! Never speak to Me of this matter again! Go up to the summit of Pisgah and gaze about, to the West, the North, the South, and the East. Look at it well, because you will not go across the Jordan.’” The beginning of this Torah portion is troubling, especially when we consider where it falls in our calendar.

At the beginning of this week, we marked Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, on which our people commemorates the destruction of both of the Temples in Jerusalem and our exile from the land of Israel. Following that period of mourning, we would hope to hear an uplifting message from the Torah portion, but we do not find it. Instead, we hear of Moses’s own exile from the Promised Land.

In order to find God’s welcoming our return, a message that we need to hear, we must delve deeper and look at the text of the Haftarah. One theory concerning the origin of the Haftarah reading comes from the time that we were under Greek rule. The Greeks prohibited us from studying the Torah text. In order to ensure that we would continue to study the themes of the weekly portions, the rabbis linked passages with similar themes from the books of the Prophets. It is in this week’s Haftarah reading from Isaiah, chapter 40, that we find the consolation that we seek after the mourning associated with the Ninth of Av.

This week’s Haftarah is the first of seven readings leading up to the High Holy Days known as the Haftarot of consolation. In it, the prophet Isaiah tells the people that God is prepared to end their suffering. God is ready for them to return from their exile in Babylon to the land of Israel. This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Nahamu, the Sabbath of Comfort, which derives its name from the opening lines from the Haftarah reading, Nachamu, nachamu ami, yomar Eloheichem, “‘Comfort, comfort My people,’ says your God.”

The Torah reading, which tells us of Moses’s pleading with God not to be exiled from the Land of Israel; and the Haftarah reading, in which Isaiah informs us that we will return to the Promised Land, seem to contradict one another. God refuses to pardon Moses for his transgression; yet, God is ready to forgive us and allow us to return to our land.

When we compare these two texts, linking them appears to be a bit puzzling. Yet, when we consider the juncture at which we now stand, the two messages might actually work together. We are at a moment of transition. As we move away from the Ninth of Av and the remembrance of our exile associated with it, we also move away from our secular year, our ordinary lives in which we might find ourselves exiled from God. Now, we move towards the most momentous of our religious holy days, when we have a chance for reconciliation with God. It seems fitting that we read a Torah portion that begins with anger and resentment only to follow it with a Haftarah reading that fills us with hope and expectation.

Making the transition from anguish to anticipation is challenging. It takes time. Our tradition begins our process of t’shuvah, return to God, at this point in our calendar, seven weeks before the Days of Awe. It is a gradual process, one that involves a series of small steps. As we move from the resentment of Va-etchannan into the hope of Isaiah, we build our trust in God. While it might be easier to believe that God seeks our return, the faith that God is capable of making it a reality is more difficult to grasp.

Isaiah seeks to teach us that God is more than a benevolent, Divine friend. God is the Power beyond all powers who not only desires our return, but can make that t’shuvah, that return, real. In the end, it is about our being willing to trust God. All true relationships are based upon such trust.

Here, we return to Tokyo. Only a small fraction of the three hundred thousand umbrellas arriving annually at Tokyo’s lost and found will ever be claimed. But when you find an umbrella in Tokyo, you turn it in to the lost and found. It’s just what you do. It’s not about whether or not someone will ever claim it. You simply have to be able to trust the people around you.

According to the Jewish calendar, today is Tu b’Av, the Fifteenth of Av. In contrast to the Ninth of Av, today is a day of celebration in Judaism. In modern Israel, it has become a sort of Valentine’s Day, a day on which we acknowledge the love we have for one another. True love can only exist when it co-exists with trust. Beginning on Tu b’Av, it is traditional to end any letters we write with L’Shanah tovah tikateivu, “May you be inscribed for a good year!” It is my hope that we can all develop the trust that God will inscribe us in the Book of Life for the coming year, that God will welcome our return.

At this moment, God asks us, “Do you trust Me?” We can only build that trust with God when we are able to trust one another. May we look out for one another not only at this season but always, leading us to trust that not only does God desire our return, but God is capable of helping us make that return a reality. And may we all be inscribed for a good year. Shabbat Shalom.