Comfort is a funny thing. In some ways, it seems negative, focusing on a material lifestyle over a meaning-based existence, remaining stuck in our comfort zone. Webster’s dictionary gives one definition of comfort as “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain and constraint.”
But there’s another side of the comfort coin, and this is the comfort we can offer others. As the dictionary puts it, “The easing or alleviation of a person’s feelings of grief and distress.” This comfort is universal. We have all experienced moments when we need to be comforted, and have opportunities to comfort those around us.
Comfort is not just a human business, however. As we commemorate the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash, we are reminded of G-d’s promise to the Jewish people: Nachamu, nachamu ami – comfort, comfort my people.
Suffering is part of all of our stories – the personal and the national. While we cannot erase others’ pain, we can comfort them through it, reminding them there is a future beyond loss and that there is someone to witness what they are experiencing. When we can comfort others as G-d comforts us, that is when we will see the unity we so desperately seek.
