The Shirt: The Resurrection Hidden in My Closet
Nachamu 5785
The modern miracle of online shopping is one of the underrated blessings of living in Israel today, combined with the even greater miracle of knowing someone flying in from the States who can bring your order with them.
Of course, the challenge with that system is that if you accidentally order the wrong thing… you're kind of stuck with it.
A few months ago, my favorite shirt company, Twillory, was running a sale. I ordered a few shirts, and when they arrived, I realized that one of them wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned. The design looked different online, as I hadn't thought to pay attention to the interior of the shirt. If I were in New York, I’d just exchange it. However, from Israel, returning it wasn’t worth the hassle. So I decided to keep it because it is still a comfortable shirt.
The questionable interior, inside the collar and cuffs, is a lining with a subtle skull pattern, which I figured no one would notice.
Until someone did.
A few weeks ago in shul, I was sitting next to my brother-in-law Shmuel. He glanced at the shirt and said, “That’s gotta be a Twillory. But you don’t strike me as a skull-and-crossbones kind of guy.” (Little does he know.)
I explained the story. He nodded and said, “Well, everything happens for a reason.”
A few minutes later, he turns back to me. Apparently, he’d been thinking about my shirt the whole time. “You know,” he says, “that shirt is perfect for Melaveh Malkah.”
I looked at him, confused.
He explained that according to Chazal, the luz bone, the small bone at the base of the skull, remains intact after death. It is from this bone that, one day, techiyas hameisim will begin. The luz is nourished specifically by the meal of Melaveh Malkah, the meal we eat after Shabbos ends.1
So now, the shirt I had written off as a mistake has become my official Melaveh Malkah shirt.
That comment stuck with me. At first, it was just funny. Though the more I thought about it, the more it felt like an invitation to revisit the topic. What is the luz bone? Why is it the one part of us that always remains? What does it mean to nourish it, week after week, with Melaveh Malkah?
Chazal tell us that when Adam ate from the Tree of Knowledge, every part of his body absorbed the taste and pleasure of the forbidden fruit, except for the luz bone. The luz resisted. It refused to take part in that primal moment of failure.2
That refusal gives it its unique power. The luz retains purity, as it survives the fall and remains untouched. That same bone is nourished by the meal of Melaveh Malkah. After three meals on Shabbos, most people have low to non-existent appetites. The fourth meal, then, is done out of commitment, rather than desire. The nourishment of the luz bone comes from spiritual intent.
The Tzemach Tzedek of Dinov writes that Melaveh Malkah brings tremendous blessing into a person’s life, especially in the area of parnassah. As the bridge between the sanctity of Shabbos and the regularity of the week, it’s a meal of continuity. In a way, it mirrors the luz bone itself, as a remnant of something sacred that continues to nourish the soul even after everything else has faded.
The symbolism continues as Luz is also the name of a place. When Yaakov Avinu woke from his dream, the one with the ladder connecting heaven and earth, he named the place Beit El. The Torah adds an unusual detail: the place had previously been called Luz.
That reference is significant. The midrash tells us that the city of Luz was known as the one place that the Angel of Death could never enter. That’s more than just a story, it’s a clue. Just like the luz bone survives the decay of the body, the city of Luz represented a space beyond the reach of destruction.
The Beis Yaakov of Ishbitz, whose yahrzeit is this Shabbos, the fifteenth of Av, explains that this place, Luz, is the midpoint between the hidden world and the revealed world. It is the very location of the future Beis HaMikdash, where the even shesiyah, the foundation stone, rests, the point from which the world was formed.
Rav Tzadok HaKohen explains3 that when Yaakov renamed Luz as Beit El, he was signaling that this was a holy, permanent place. It was a house, a dwelling for enduring kedusha. Even when the Beis HaMikdash is destroyed, and even when holiness seems to have vanished, the foundational sanctity still exists. It may be hidden, but it is never lost.
In Chassidus, memory is about the past and also about what will be. The luz bone works the same way. It remembers who we were before we were broken, and also who we are capable of becoming. It stores the promise along with the past.
The luz bone is the quiet, invincible presence that holds on to who we are, even when everything else has collapsed. It connects heaven and earth, the darkest night with the brightest day, the constriction of our past with the infinite unraveling of our future. The luz is more than a remnant, it is the home and conduit of kedusha.
Rav Joey Rosenfeld recently gave a shiur on this topic and in his usual way, approaches this from a deep and broad perspective, reaching to the innermost depths of the soul. His Torah talks to the neshama and I will try to convey it here as best I could. He explains, as explained above, that the luz bone represents the part of you that never died to begin with.
Every person, no matter how shattered, carries within them a nekudah, a point that cannot be reduced, broken, or contaminated. This point is independent of spiritual performance or emotional health. It is the etzem, the luz, the irreducible essence of who we are.
You can lose your way, faith and practically everything, but you can never lose your luz.
So what nourishes it? It is not the big dramatic moments of inspiration, nor the heroic acts. Rather it is something quiet and easily overlooked: a meal at the end of Shabbos. A small act of consistency. A whisper of faith that says, I may be tired, but I’m not done. That one act feeds the part of you that never gave up.
The luz remembers our wholeness. It carries a quiet knowledge of who we were before we were broken, and who we are meant to become. In that sense, the luz is about the ongoing resurrection within life, which is a memory that builds.
This past Motzaei Shabbos, we missed a Melaveh Malkah, because it was Tisha B’Av and so the luz didn’t get its usual nourishment. As the fast began to wind down, I realized that we would be making Havdalah afterward. In a way, it was one long Shabbos, and we would break the fast with a Melaveh Malkah.
That moment struck me as deeply significant.
Last week, I wrote4 about how the greatest darkness often precedes the greatest light, the Ohr HaGanuz, the hidden light of creation. On Shabbos Chazon, we catch a glimpse of that light, and Tisha B’Av, in all its devastation, offers a glimpse of the day that Mashiach will come. I wasn’t sure what to write for Shabbos Nachamu, but then I realized the theme continues. It is only once we catch a glimpse of light that we can fully recognize the darkness around us. Contrast can only exist when there is also light.
Rav Joey teaches that redemption comes from within it. In Lecha Dodi, we say, "Kumi tzei mitoch hahafecha"—“Arise, go forth from the midst of the upheaval.” You can read that line which assumes that we’ll first get out of the darkness, and then we’ll enter the light. Then there’s a deeper reading which is that the way out is through. The upheaval is what enables the redemption.
The very same hafecha, the chaos, the undoing, the brokenness, is also the birthplace of the Mikdash Melech, the royal sanctuary. The light shows up inside the darkness. That’s what it means to feed the luz bone through the pain and that’s when healing starts to take root.
Shabbos Nachamu marks the beginning of the Seven Weeks of Consolation. Each of the seven haftaros we read over the coming weeks offers a step out of the rubble, a stage of recovery. We can’t go straight from mourning to joy, from galus to geula, from darkness to light. If we were to jump into it all at once, it would be too much. The light would overwhelm us. So we ease into it, one week at a time. Slowly, gently, we begin to reacclimate. Then after those seven weeks, we arrive at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, days when we draw closest to Hashem, when the light is at its strongest. From there we enter Sukkos, a time of intimacy, of dwelling with the Shechina. It all builds toward Hoshana Rabbah, which chazal describe as the moment when the gates of geula are fully open, when Mashiach can finally arrive.
On Motzaei Shabbos, Tisha B’Av, the luz bone endured the weight of the darkest day of the year. The next night, we made Havdalah and broke our fast, on Melaveh Malkah, so regardless of our intention, the luz received its delayed nourishment. That moment, quiet, almost unnoticed, is when the healing began. That’s when the comfort starts to take root.
The Luz bone begins the healing while it still buried under rubble. It is the point of unbreakable identity that remains intact because it passed through it. Rav Joey explains that nechamah is what emerges when we hold pain with enough presence that it starts to transform, because we begin to see it differently.
So often we think of memory as something that holds us back: “I’ll never forget what happened.” At the same time, there is another type of memory that pushes us forward. The luz remembers the original shape of the soul. It remembers what it means to be whole. It is that memory that quietly pulls us toward a future where that wholeness can be reclaimed.
The luz reminds us who we are.
This is the secret of the seven weeks of comfort: they move us from mochin d’katnus, a constricted mindset, where we feel small, ashamed, or stuck, to mochin d’gadlus, a broader awareness of who we are and what’s possible.
Each week is about reorienting and reframing the suffering. We should sit with it long enough for it to reveal a deeper layer of self. That’s why these weeks prepare us for Elul. Then Elul prepares us for Rosh Hashanah, which prepares us for Sukkos which perhaps if done right, allows us to prepare for a Simchas Torah of nechama and redemption.
We can begin to rebuild as a people and move from ruin to redemption. We can begin to see the luz that was always there, even when all else was gone. That moment of nourishment becomes the turning point, which is the first step toward restoring ourselves fully to Hashem.
Shabbos Nachamu always falls on Parashas Va’eschanan as a gentle reminder. Moshe Rabbeinu prayed 515 different tefillos to be allowed entry into Eretz Yisrael. He had hope, yet the Torah teaches us a hard truth: not everyone reaches their promised land. Even Moshe was denied entry, though he didn’t see himself as a failure. He continued to hope, to pray, to believe in the unfolding future.
This kind of hope, uncertain, yet persistent while seemingly naive or over optimistic, is in fact, liberating. It prepares us for disappointment without closing the door on possibility. It keeps us moving forward even when the outcome is unclear. Just as Moshe remained faithful to the dream, we too are called to carry the quiet strength of hope because it sustains us through the unknown.
Rav Joey writes that “knowing that there are stages in the process of healing brings comfort to the soul.” That’s why the pasuk says, “Nachamu, nachamu ami” — “Comfort, comfort My people.” The word ami (עמי) can be read as an acronym for the spiritual development stages of ibur (conception), yenika (nurturing), and mochin (maturity). He writes elsewhere that the luz bone represents this unfolding. It holds the power to root us in the future rather than bind us to the narrowness of the past.
The Tiferes Shlomo, in his teaching on Shabbos Nachamu, explains that the most painful part of galus is the sense that Hashem has abandoned us. The nechamah, the comfort, offered by the nevi’im is that wherever we are, Hashem is right there with us in the good and in the ugly.
To begin unraveling the future, we must first be willing to sit in the darkness and truly feel it. We should embrace the hopelessness and the yeiush. We should feel the pain of what has been lost, although, even there, we should hold on to hope because we have the Luz.
This Shabbos is Shabbos Nachamu and also the fifteenth of Av, Tu B’Av, a day with its own quiet, redemptive power. It marks the beginning of the Yemei Ratzon, the days of Divine favor that slowly build toward Elul and the Yamim Nora’im.
Among the many events that took place on this day, one stands out as especially resonant in this context. Tu B’Av is the day the shevatim were permitted to intermarry. Until then, tribal boundaries remained closed, with each shevet focused inward. On Tu B’Av, the berachos that Yaakov had given to each of his sons, unique, personal, and non-transferable, were finally allowed to flow between them. The Radomsker explains that each shevet, instead of guarding its blessings for itself, could now share those blessings with others. They could see what another shevet lacked and step in to provide it. Tu B’Av marked the transformation from a collection of shevatim into a unified nation of brothers. A nation went from surviving to looking out for one another.
Another event, equally powerful, is tied to the sin of the meraglim. After Bnei Yisrael accepted the slanderous report about Eretz Yisrael, Hashem decreed that the entire adult male generation would die in the desert instead of entering the land. According to the Midrash, each year on the 9th of Av, the men would dig their own graves and lie down in them. The next morning, 15,000 would remain in the grave. This continued for nearly four decades.
In the fortieth year, something changed. The remaining men followed the same routine, digging their graves and lying down in them on the eve of the 9th of Av. Yet this time, all of them woke up. They thought they had miscalculated, so they repeated the act the following night and again the next. Each morning, every man rose from his grave. It wasn’t until the full moon of the fifteenth of Av appeared that they realized that Tisha B’Av had definitely passed. That meant that the decree had ended and they were going to live to enter the land.
This moment, emerging from the grave into the light of the full moon, was more than relief. It was a shift in perspective. A recognition that even in our darkest times, the future can unfold in unexpected ways. We had been condemned and we were spared. We had been broken and we could rebuild. The light of Tu B’Av revealed what had already begun beneath the surface. It is a future that is quietly forming, even as we sit in darkness.
On Tu B’Av, we found each other again. We found our way back to brotherhood, to love, to collective purpose. We found the strength to rehabilitate what had been broken and begin again as a nation. A nation of blessing, of compassion, of mutual responsibility.
When we look out for each other, when we share our blessings and help carry each other’s burdens, we move through nechama and we emerge from consolation into light. We enter Elul and Rosh Hashanah as individuals seeking closeness with Hashem and more importantly, as part of a people who have used their gifts to replenish His children.
Rav Joey explains that the luz is a threshold, a border between this world and the next. In the Zohar and the writings of the Arizal, the term ever (lit. bone) always refers to a crossing point, a place of transition between spiritual dimensions. (as in me’ever la’nahar, “from the other side of the river”)
Avraham was called HaIvri—"the one from the other side"—because he stood on one side of truth and the entire world on the other. He crossed over and saw what others couldn’t.
The luz functions the same way. It remains planted in this world, even buried under the weight of life, but it points toward rebirth. It is the part of us that never gives in, the part built to rise. Even in our lowest moments, it doesn’t disappear. That’s what Melaveh Malkah reawakens. It nourishes that inner bridge and tells the soul: You’re still capable of rising. You were always meant to cross back.
The luz bone also carries us into something closer: techiyas ha’panim, the resurrection of the self. The reawakening of hope. The return of who we really are.
Maybe that’s the secret behind the widespread Motzaei Shabbos Nachamu kumsitz and Melaveh Malkah. It’s the moment when we begin to transition from Av to Elul, from death to life. It’s when we take what remains, what never broke, what never died, and we turn it into a niggun. A song that carries us forward and leads us toward the great light.
So, the shirt I almost returned, the one I thought was a mistake, still hangs in my closet. I don’t wear it every Motzaei Shabbos. When I see it, I remember: that even in the most unexpected places, even in the lining of something I didn’t choose, there may be something hidden that reminds me who I really am. A quiet resilience. A luz bone in fabric form.
May the day soon come when we no longer need to nourish the luz bone in the shadows of exile because we will stand whole again, body and soul, in a world redeemed. A world where what once seemed lost is revealed to have been waiting all along.
Zohar I:137a; see also Mishna Berura 300:1
Bereishis Rabbah 28:3; Vayikra Rabbah 18:1; Zohar I:69a; Levush and Beis Yosef on Orach Chaim 300:1
Pri Tzadik, Vayetzei