The prophet Isaiah puts a complaint into the mouth of Zion. The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me (Isaiah 49:14). The community of Israel, in the Talmud's reading, speaks through this verse with an aching image. Even a man who takes a second wife still remembers the kindness of the first. But You, Lord, have forgotten me entirely.
The Holy One answers not with rebuke but with an inventory of the universe. Daughter, He says, I created twelve constellations in the firmament. For each constellation I created thirty armies. For each army thirty legions. Each legion has thirty divisions, each division thirty cohorts, each cohort thirty camps. Multiply these nested hosts and the numbers become dizzying. And in each camp hang 365,000 myriads of stars, one for every day of the year multiplied beyond counting. All of this I made for your sake. And still you say I have forgotten you?
Then the verse from Isaiah finishes itself. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee (Isaiah 49:15). God does not deny that mothers sometimes forget. He only denies that He ever will.
This passage from Berakhot 32b, preserved in Harris's 1901 Hebraic Literature, is one of the tenderest arguments between God and His people. Zion accuses. God answers with astronomy and with motherhood. The whole sky burns every night as a love letter, written in the only ink that cannot be erased.