‘Mend my broken heart and let me live again’
To readers who remember the Bee Gees, our headline may bring memories of a plaintive 1970s hit love song. But today, the words, “broken heart” evoke other, more poignant and piercing emotional reactions. And since everything in our universe is contained in our Holy Torah, let us start there.
Last week’s parsha, Ki Seitzei, is understandably associated with war, beginning with the unusual and vexing issue of a beautiful woman taken by a Jewish soldier in the heat of battle. This is followed immediately by the passage dealing with the beloved wife and hated wife and finally the rebellious son.
It is understood by most commentators that the juxtaposition of these three passages is a progression — the inappropriate desire for the non-Jewish woman captive will lead to her being despised, which will ultimately lead to her son to become an incorrigible and rebellious child.
I’d like to focus on the second of the three passages: the two wives, beloved and despised.
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It is interesting to note that the Or HaChaim Hakadosh, Rabbi Chaim Ibn Attar, comments that the reference to the first born son as the hated one (Deuteronomy 21:15) indicates a declaration by the Torah that the bechor, the first born, will be born to the hated wife. This he says, is an indication of Hashem’s compassion, for seeing the heartbreaking situation of the hated wife, Hashem will grant her the honor and the reward of having the first born (who will inherit a double portion) son. Much as the matriarch Leah was rewarded with children first, before her sister Rachel, because Leah was unloved by Jacob, and Hashem felt her pain.
This notion, that Hashem supports the broken hearted is seen repeatedly throughout Tanach:
Tehillim say that “Hashem is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who spirits are crushed” (34:19); “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their sorrows” (147:3); and “A broken and crushed heart, O’ God, you will not despise” (51:19).
The Kotzker Rebbe famously comments on the verse that “nothing is so dear to Hashem than a broken heart; nothing is as whole in the eyes of Hashem, as a broken heart”. But what does that mean? Does Hashem want us to have a broken heart?
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Before answering or even attempting to answer this profound and troubling question, it is clear that no question could be more appropriate for our time than this one. Not just because it is Elul and we approach Hashem and the Yumim Noraim with hearts filled with thoughts of teshuva and anticipation of forgiveness. No, it’s because for the past 11 months we have all been functioning or attempting to function with ever present, broken hearts.
Since the horrors of Shmini Atzeret 5783, all of us have had an individual and collective broken heart.
But perhaps the most broken hearts of all are those who have time after time been tortured by the hope and expectation of a hostage release, only to have those hopes cruelly dashed by a barbaric enemy and tormentor, and in the most cruel act of all, to have those hostages murdered, only minutes or hours before their rescue.
One need only hear the anguish in Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s voice to even have a fraction of understanding of the depth of heartbreak that she and all the others carry within themselves, always, all the time.
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So what does Hashem want from us? He does not want us to have a broken heart!
The Kotzker’s typically opaque language summarized as “there is nothing so whole as a broken heart” reveals an underlying and deeper truth— that Hashem, filled with compassion, desires most of all the prayers and closeness, the dveikut, to Him of those whose hearts are broken, because he so desperately wants to “heal those broken hearts and bind their sorrows.”
It is fitting that the poetic verses in Tehillim, which fill us with hope and comfort, were written by David Hamelech, who suffered all of his life with great pain, anguish, stress, and tribulation. Yet he never lost his love or faith in G-d. His words of Tehillim are filled with songs of gladness, happiness and thanksgiving, words we recite every day and especially on the chagim.
David Hamelech was able to transcend a life of incredible, unceasing heartbreak, give us some of the most powerful and inspiring messages the human ear has ever heard, and still pursue fulfillment and happiness through closeness to G-d — and despite his many faults and failings as a human being, became the father of Melech HaMoshiach!
The Zohar tells us, “There is no light greater than the light that emerges out of darkness.”
We can all agree that we are in a profound darkness, our hearts are broken and filled with sorrow. And that just as after the indescribable darkness and sorrow of the Shoah, Hashem granted us the light of the birth of the State of Israel, the beginning of the sprouting of our redemption, we beg you, we beseech you Hashem, that you bring us the light of the complete redemption.
We see this in this week’s haftarah for Ki Savo, Isaiah (60:1-22):
Arise! Shine! For your light has arrived, and the glory of Hashem has shined upon you.
And in Isaiah (60:19):
For you shall no longer have need of the sun for light of the day, nor the brightness of the moon to illuminate you, rather Hashem shall be unto you an eternal light, and your G-d for your glory.
Please Hashem, the time has come. Help us mend our broken heart. Bring us the light.
Alan A. Mazurek, MD, a resident of Great Neck and Baka in Yerushalayim, is a retired neurologist, and former Chairman of the Zionist Organization of America.
CORRECTION: In our print edition, the parsha listed was incorrect.
