Like a man whose mother has comforted him, so shall I comfort you and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted
-Isiah 66:13
The scene: A few years ago, in my family's living room. My three year old nephew is playing with Legos, then begins throwing them across the room suspiciously close to the head of his younger brother. His mother tells him to stop that right now. He plays nicely for a few minutes, then goes back to hurling Legos. "Yosef," she says, "if you do that one more time, I am going to have to punish you." He giggles and throws another Lego. "Yosef!" she says, and takes his hand and slaps it, very gently. He looks around the room in a look of wordless, tortured affrontery and bursts into tears. Then he turns and flings himself at his mother, sobbing damply into her shirt. "Poor Yosef," she says, "poor boy. You are so maltreated."
1 comment:
"turning to the hand that hit you for comfort because there is no one else to turn to." (an anonymous source.)funny how accurate an allegory for the Jew/G-d relationship; tortured and battered, bloody and broken, yet we keep returning to the Hand that hits us because if not that then what? if not Him, then who?
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