Some prophetic verses comfort us by promising that a better future will come.
Others tell us that bringing about that future requires something from us.
This week's Haftorah (Isaiah 54:1-10) does both.
Jerusalem has endured exile and loss, but Isaiah tells her not to look only at what has been destroyed. She must look ahead to what will be rebuilt.
"Enlarge the place of your tent and let the curtains of your dwellings stretch forth; do not hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you shall spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants shall inherit nations, and they shall settle desolate cities" (Isaiah 54:2-3).
It is a powerful image of confidence in the future. Jerusalem is told to prepare for growth because her children will return, her population will increase and places that had been desolate will once again be filled with life.
Kol HaTor, a mystical volume by Rabbi Hillel Rivlin (1757-1838) which records the Vilna Gaon's teachings concerning the process of redemption, sees in this verse something more than a promise about the future.
The word harchivi, enlarge, points to the concept of harchavah - expansion. The rebuilding of Jerusalem, the settlement of Eretz Yisrael and the ingathering of the Jewish people are not matters that require Jews simply to wait for Divine intervention. They require human effort as part of the redemptive process. Hence the Haftorah's command: Harchivi m'kom ohaleich - "Enlarge the place of your tent."
But Kol HaTor makes another fascinating observation.
The Hebrew word harchavah, expansion, contains the same letters as hachravah, destruction, only arranged differently.
Perhaps that is precisely Isaiah's message to a people emerging from ruin. The response to hachravah is harchavah.
When Jewish life has been destroyed, we rebuild it. When Jewish communities have been emptied, we refill them. When the Land has been left desolate, we cultivate it once again.
That has been the pattern of Jewish history.
Enemies have repeatedly sought to uproot us, disperse us and erase what previous generations had built. Yet the Jewish response has never been merely to survive. Again and again, Jews rebuilt schools and synagogues, communities and institutions, families and centers of Torah learning.
And nowhere is that more visible than in Eretz Yisrael.
For centuries, much of the Land lay neglected while the Jewish people remained scattered across the globe. Yet the prophets insisted that the exile would end and that the children of Israel would return.
Isaiah does not describe that return passively.
Look carefully at the language of the verse:
Harchivi - enlarge.
Al tachsochi - do not hold back.
Ha'arichi - lengthen.
Chazeiki - strengthen.
Each word is a call to action.
Jerusalem is told not simply to believe that her children will return, but to make room for them.
That idea has particular meaning for our generation.
We have been privileged to witness something that generations of Jews could only dream about. Millions of Jews have returned to Eretz Yisrael. Jerusalem has been rebuilt, and places that were once barren are now filled with homes, schools, synagogues and Jewish communities.
But Isaiah does not tell Jerusalem merely to preserve what has already been built.
He tells her to make the tent larger.
There are still Jews to bring home, communities to strengthen and parts of the Land to build. The process that Isaiah describes is not finished, and neither is our role in it.
That may be the deeper significance of the wordplay cited by Kol HaTor. Jewish history is not merely a story of surviving destruction, but of answering it through renewed growth.
Isaiah's message was one of consolation, but also of responsibility.
The answer to hachravah is harchavah.
When others destroy, Jews rebuild.
And when we rebuild, we do not merely restore what was lost. We make it greater than before.