The Torah reading which took place on Shabbat is taken from Deuteronomy and is called Ekev, meaning 'consequences' (Deuteronomy 7:12 – 11-25)
Everything little thing we do has consequences, and G_d is telling us that if we follow His guidance in the small minutiae of life as well as in the obvious we will overcome.
Following its partner Torah passage, the 2<sup>nd Haftorah of Consolation (Isaiah 49:14 - 51:3) also discusses the theme of consequences.
In a bold metaphor, Isaiah likens the Jewish people to a baby forsaken by their nursing mother. The Jewish people have been cast out of their homeland and sent into exile – an exile of 2000 years: years of terrible humiliation, torment and rejection.
In this vivid image of the Divine as mother, Isaiah has G_d consoling the Jewish people with the assurance that they will in fact not be abandoned in exile. For even if they are in exile, their own children and grandchildren will return to the Promised Land in droves.
Not only this, but their children and grandchildren will be accompanied on their return journey to the Promised Land by the worldly powers originally responsible for their exile. Thus Israel – people, land and religion – will be vindicated in the eyes of the world.
In the meantime, whatever degradation and humiliation the Jewish people has to endure in exile, G_d reminds them to 'Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the hollow of the pit from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your forefather and Sarah who bore you.'
Why Abraham and Sarah? Abraham was also on his own when he left his place of birth in Mesopotamia, destroyed his father's false idols and declared that there was only one uniqe G_d. Abraham then travelled towards the Promised Land, demonstrating on the way that it is possible to live according to G_d's ways in exile.
Abraham is all on his own and yet G_d saves him. Abraham is only one among many. The Jewish people are also one among many. Just as Abraham achieved a great deal from small beginnings, so the Jewish people will overcome in the end and in addition become 'a light unto the nations.'
In the meantime G_d will console the Jewish people and turn her deserts into a Garden of Eden.
'Joy and gladness will be found there: thanksgiving and the sound of music.'
This is how the 2<sup>nd Haftorah of Consolation ends. But during their 2000-year journey in exile, how many times have the Jewish people had to take up their bags and abandon what they considered to be 'home'?
After the Roman expulsion of 2000 years ago, the Jews suffered Crusades and the 1492 expulsion from Spain. In between, England also expelled them in 1290, only allowing them back in 1656. For 2000 years Jews have had to uproot, flee and start again.
And just before our own day the Holocaust destroyed two thirds of the Jews of Europe.
This remnant started their lives once again outside the areas of Germany, Eastern Europe and Russia where most had lived for hundreds if not thousands of years. Today, half of the world's Jews live in Israel, with most of the remaining half live in America, and Europe pretty bereft of Jews.
For today, once again, the Jewish community is threatened in Europe, not least in the UK, where often existing laws are no guarantee against attack by this country's most respected institutions.
There are many who feel that sufferings in Europe are part of G_d's plan to encourage Jews to leave for their own land.
