(Photo: Unsplash/Soliman Cifuentes)Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster reflects on the profound prophetic vision in Isaiah 40. My grandson has his bar mitzvah this year and will be reading these passages on Shabbat ‘Nechamu’, this Shabbat of comfort (July 25). Instead of ‘remembering’ the Shabbat day, they are now to ‘safeguard’ it (Deuteronomy 5:12). Isaiah 40 starts with the double injunction to ‘comfort comfort My people.’ If we really want to understand this ‘Shabbat of Comfort’, the key may well lie in the safeguarding of our traditions through all life’s ups and downs, irrespective of what the world throws at us.