This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Chazon, the Shabbat of our vision. The third Shabbat of affliction in the lead up to Tishah b’Av, this week completes a series of haftarot which gear us up emotionally for the destruction of our two Temples on the Ninth of Av.
This Shabbat is traditionally understood to offer a vision of the rebuilding of the Third Temple, when Temple worship of old is restored.
Yet for many Jews today, the prospect of a restored Temple can feel distant from the Judaism we know and practise.
We do not long for a return to the sacrifices of Temple Judaism. So what can this final haftarah of affliction, and the words of Isaiah, offer us?
The Talmud teaches that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, baseless hatred. It likens this to the three worst transgressions; idolatry, forbidden sexual relations and murder, because this hatred corrodes communities from within, turning difference into enmity.
The redemption of Isaiah’s vision is not one of ritual, but of responsibility. His words urge us out of the vicious cycle of hatred, to a time when we are not redeemed by the grandeur of the Temple, but by the way we treat one another.
In his eyes, the vision of a Third Temple is one where we move from sinat chinam to ahavat chinam, from hatred to love.
On this Shabbat as we approach Tishah b’Av, we are given an opportunity to banish baseless hatred from our hearts, to learn from the mistakes of the past and help repair our fractured world.
Baseless love may be hard to achieve, but Shabbat Chazon invites us to imagine a world transformed by compassion and responsibility.
A society in which the vulnerable are protected, the wronged are heard, and justice is pursued in our communities and in our relationships. Only then can reconciliation truly begin.
May this Shabbat of vision set the tone for the future. May we refuse to be ruled by baseless hatred and instead learn to do good, seek justice and stand beside those in need.
If we can do that, Isaiah’s vision will cease to be a distant dream and instead can become a reality that we help to create in our world.
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