DECEMBER 15 • 2022 | 65
law existed prior to the giving
of the Torah. Jacob himself
says to Laban, whose flocks
and herds had been placed in
his charge, “I did not bring
you animals torn by wild
beasts; I bore the loss myself”
(Gen. 31:39). This implies
that guardians even then were
exempt from responsibility
for the damage caused by wild
animals. We also know that an
elder brother carried a similar
responsibility for the fate of a
younger brother placed in his
charge, as, for example, when
the two were alone together.
That is the significance of
Cain’s denial when confronted
by God as to the fate of Abel:
“Am I my brother’s guardian
[shomer]?” (Gen. 4:9)
We now understand a series
of nuances in the encounter
between Jacob and his sons
upon their return without
Joseph. Normally, they
would be held responsible
for their younger brother’s
disappearance. To avoid this,
as in the case of later biblical
law, they “bring the remains
as evidence.” If those remains
show signs of an attack by
a wild animal, they must
— by virtue of the law then
operative — be held innocent.
Their request to Jacob, haker
na, must be construed as
a legal request, meaning,
“Examine the evidence.”
Jacob has no alternative but
to do so, and by virtue of
what he has seen, to acquit
them. A judge, however, may
be forced to acquit someone
accused of a crime because
the evidence is insufficient
to justify a conviction, while
still retaining lingering private
doubts. So Jacob was forced
to find his sons innocent,
without necessarily trusting
what they said. In fact, Jacob
did not believe it, and his
refusal to be comforted shows
that he was unconvinced. He
continued to hope that Joseph
was still alive. That hope was
eventually justified: Joseph
was still alive, and father and
son were ultimately reunited.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
The refusal to be comforted
sounded more than once in
Jewish history. The prophet
Jeremiah heard it in a later
age:
This is what the Lord says:
“A voice is heard in
Ramah,
Mourning and great
weeping,
Rachel weeping for her
children
Refusing to be comforted,
Because her children are
no more.”
This is what the Lord says:
“Restrain your voice from
weeping,
And your eyes from tears,
For your work will be
rewarded,” says the Lord.
“They will return from the
land of the enemy.
So there is hope for your
future,” declares the Lord,
“Your children will return
to their own land.”
Jeremiah 31:15–17
Why was Jeremiah sure that
Jews would return? Because
they refused to be comforted
— meaning, they refused to
give up hope.
So it was during the
Babylonian exile, as
articulated in one of the most
paradigmatic expressions of
the refusal to be comforted:
By the rivers of Babylon we
sat and wept,
As we remembered Zion…
How can we sing the songs
of the Lord in a strange
land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
May my right hand forget
[its skill],
May my tongue cling to the
roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not consider
Jerusalem above my highest
joy.
Psalms 137:1–6
It is said that Napoleon,
passing a synagogue on the
fast day of Tisha b’Av, heard
the sounds of lamentation.
“What are the Jews crying
for?” he asked one of his
officers. “For Jerusalem,” the
soldier replied. “How long ago
did they lose it?” “More than
1,700 hundred years.”
“A people who can mourn
for Jerusalem so long will one
day have it restored to them,”
the emperor is reputed to
have replied.
Jews are the people who
refused to be comforted
because they never gave up
hope. Jacob did eventually
see Joseph again. Rachel’s
children did return to the
land. Jerusalem is once
again the Jewish home. All
the evidence may suggest
otherwise: it may seem to
signify irretrievable loss, a
decree of history that cannot
be overturned, a fate that
must be accepted. Jews never
believed the evidence because
they had something else to set
against it — a faith, a trust, an
unbreakable hope that proved
stronger than historical
inevitability.
It is not too much to say
that Jewish survival was
sustained in that hope. And
that hope came from a simple
— or perhaps not so simple
— phrase in the life of Jacob.
He refused to be comforted.
And so — while we live in a
world still scarred by violence,
poverty and injustice — must
we.
The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
served as the chief rabbi of the
United Hebrew Congregations of the
Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teach-
ings have been made available to all
at rabbisacks.org. This essay was orig-
inally written in 2007.
Why do you think Jacob refused to give up hope
that Joseph was still alive?
Can you think of examples from Jewish history
of when the Jewish people refused to give up
hope?
What do you think is the source of this refusal to
give up hope?
What can other people of the world learn from
the Jewish refusal to give up hope in the face of
adversity?