Tag Archives: Jeremiah

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August 24, 2023

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Deuteronomy (דברים), Divrei Torah (Weekly Sermons)

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How do we know whom to listen to? – Shoftim 5783

How do we know who to listen to? Whom to trust?

This is a real problem for all of us, with so much conflicting information and sources surrounding us. It is one of the major sources of division in our world.

It turns out, this is nothing new.

This morning’s Torah portion, Shoftim, is primarily about leadership. It focuses on rules for judges and kings, as  well as laws about the waging of war. One area that it covers is what to do when situations arise that the Torah does not anticipate. Who should be consulted for leadership and guidance? Who can be trusted?

To introduce this question, Moses first reminds the Israelites of what happened at Mount Sinai nearly forty years earlier. God’s Presence descended on the mountain in a tremendous cacophony of sound, light, smoke, and shaking.

The people freak out, telling Moses, “We can’t take it anymore. This is going to kill us. You go talk to God and report back to us. We’ll do whatever you say.”

Moses reports that God was pleased with the Israelites’ response. It seems that, in fact, this reaction was what God was aiming for all along. The purpose of the overwhelming display of power was to get the people to put their trust in God’s Prophet—Moses. Here in Deuteronomy, Moses expands on God’s words to him at that time, with an eye towards the future. 

“…I will raise up a prophet for them from among their own people, like yourself: I will put My words in his mouth and he will speak to them all that I command him; and if anybody fails to heed the words he speaks in My name, I Myself will call him to account.

Deuteronomy 18:18-19

God’s plan, apparently, is to have prophets who will convey the Divine will to human beings. They carry the authority to speak in God’s name, and the people will be expected to follow their instructions.

But there is a problem, which God anticipates: what to do about fakes.

But any prophet who presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I did not command him to utter, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet shall die.”

Deuteronomy 18:20

That seems straightforward enough. Of course, how are we supposed to know if someone is a fake? Again, Moses provides the answer:

And should you ask yourselves, “How can we know that the oracle was not spoken by the LORD?”— if the prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the oracle does not come true, that oracle was not spoken by the LORD; the prophet has uttered it presumptuously: do not stand in dread of him. (Deut. 18:21-22)

If a prophet’s prediction does not happen, then they are not to be believed. Honestly, that does not seem like a very good test. What if the prediction is for something that is supposed to happen fifty years from now? Or ten years? Or even next month? How am I supposed to know, right now, whether to listen to this purported prophet?

The passage in Shoftim about prophecy seems so optimistic. God is pleased that the Israelites agree to listen to Moses and follows his instructions. And yet, if we actually follow the careers of the prophets through the Bible, we find that them to be a tragic lot. 

To illustrate the problem, we turn to the book of Jeremiah. It is during the final decades of the First Temple, towards the end of the reign of the dynasty of King David.

Jeremiah was a tortured soul. He preached doom and gloom for several decades, speaking God’s word to several kings, along with the residents of Jerusalem. The great tragedy is that nobody listens to Jeremiah. In fact, there are a lot of other prophets running around preaching messages of hope and victory – the kinds of predictions that kings and the Jerusalem upper crust like to hear. 

As a result of his prophecies, Jeremiah himself is sent to prison.

In one moment of exasperation, Jeremiah turns his rage to God.

Accursed be the day that I was born! Let not the day be blessed when my mother bore me! Accursed be the man who brought my father the news and said, “A boy Is born to you,” and gave him such joy! Let that man become like the cities which the LORD overthrew without relenting! Let him hear shrieks in the morning and battle shouts at noontide—because he did not kill me before birth so that my mother might be my grave, and her womb big [with me] for all time. Why did I ever issue from the womb, to see misery and woe, to spend all my days in shame!

Jeremiah 20:14-18

This is the great irony. The true prophet is not believed, and the false prophets are embraced. The rules in Parashat Shoftim do not appear to have been particularly effective.

The following story takes place early in the reign of King Zedekiah, the final king to rule over Judah before the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

Jeremiah sends leather straps and wooden yokes to all of the surrounding kings, as well to King Zedekiah. The accompanying message is that they should submit to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, to whom God will be delivering all of their lands. There is no point in resisting.

To demonstrate the seriousness of his point, Jeremiah puts King Zedekiah’s yoke on his own neck and straps it closed. He had a flair for dramatic gestures.

One of the many other prophets, Hananiah son of Azzur, comes to the Temple to offer a counterprophecy. This is what he says:

Thus said the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: I hereby break the yoke of the king of Babylon. In two years, I will restore to this place all the vessels of the House of the LORD which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from this place and brought to Babylon. And I will bring back to this place King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, and all the Judean exiles who went to Babylon—declares the LORD. Yes, I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 28:2-4

Basically, “Don’t worry about Nechudnezzar. We got this.”

Jeremiah, who is present for this speech, turns to the assembled priests and Israelites, reminds them to watch out for false prophets, and offers a test for identifying one. This test, as we will see, is a clarification of Moses’ test in Parashat Shoftim.

The prophets who lived before you and me from ancient times prophesied war, disaster, and pestilence against many lands and great kingdoms. So if a prophet prophesies good fortune, then only when the word of the prophet comes true can it be known that the LORD really sent him.”

Jeremiah 28:8-9

If a prophet predicts death and destruction, you’d better listen. But if a prophet says that everything is going to be great, it would be best to wait and see if it comes true before following said prophet.

Not to be dissuaded, Hananiah breaks the wooden yoke from Jeremiah’s neck, and declares:

Thus said the LORD: So will I break the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon from off the necks of all the nations, in two years.

Jeremiah 28:11

Jeremiah confronts Hananiah once again, 

“Listen, Hananiah! The LORD did not send you, and you have given this people lying assurances. Assuredly, thus said the LORD: I am going to banish you from off the earth. This year you shall die, for you have urged disloyalty to the LORD.”

And the prophet Hananiah died that year, in the seventh month.

Jeremiah 28:15-17

Even Hanahiah’s death does not convince the people to heed Jeremiah’s warnings.

Overall, the Israelite prophets were not especially successful in their own day. They underwent immense personal hardship and suffering. They were despised by their neighbors. Kings did not especially appreciate their warnings. And when they tried to convince the people and/or the rulers to follow God’s will, nobody really listened.

The prophets failed in all of their major endeavors. They were unable to save the united kingdom from splitting. They did not prevent the Northern Kingdom from falling to the Assyrians. They did not prevent the Temple from being destroyed by the Babylonians. 

Perhaps this is what leads the Rabbis to officially declare the era of the prophets over. 

Rabbi Avdimi from Haifa says: From the day that the Temple was destroyed prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to the Sages.

BT Bava Batra 12a

The subsequent discussion concludes that Sages are and were always superior to prophets in the first place. The pursuit of wisdom, the preoccupation of the Sages, offers a path towards propehcy. A prophet may or may not have wisdom, but a wise person can access the Divine will. (It is a nice idea, especially if one is a Sage.)

Rabbi Yoḥanan offers a different insight.

Rabbi Yoḥanan said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to imbeciles and children.

Ibid.

What is this suggesting? Perhaps that prophecy, the revelation of the true Divine will, is only given to those who are destined to not be taken seriously.

In this, perhaps, not much has changed. As exemplified by Jeremiah, the tragedy of the true Prophet is that the truth that the prophet pronounces is not accepted by those who most need to hear it. People are much more likely to listen to what they already know, or what they want to hear.

I fear not much has changed. The ancient prophets were the social and political critics of their day. Most of them would have met the criteria—either Moses’ or Jeremiah’—of the false prophet.

What concerned the true prophets? They worried about the nation’s allegiance to God. They warned against the adoption by the leaders of immoral practices. They worried about the mistreatment and the neglect of the poor, both by the leaders and the population at large. They spoke out against immoral behavior by the population. They tried to convince the people to return to the moral path.

Today, how do we determine who to listen to? I fear that the determination is made, more and more, by an algorithm designed to feed us that to which we are most likely to respond positively, a phenomenon strikingly similar to the false prophets who fed the king and the people the message that they thought would be most well-received (and would be most likely to keep them from being jailed or executed).

It is the fools and children, those who, in their naivete, are less concerned with how their words will be received; or the wise, those whose allegiance to the pursuit of truth outweighs the desire for fame and fortune, whose words we perhaps ought to listen for.

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May 28, 2016

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Leviticus (ויקרא)

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Living With Hope – Haftarah for Parashat Behar 5776

Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar me’od.

V’ha-ikar lo lefached k’lal.

The whole world is a very narrow bridge, a very narrow bridge, a very narrow bridge…

But the main thing to recall, is to have no, have no fear at all.

This is possibly the most famous teaching of the great Hassidic Rebbe, Nachman of Bratslov.  It is so famous that Baruch Chait turned it into a song which any Jewish child who goes to summer camp or youth group learns by heart.

To be honest, until this week I never really thought about what it means.  “The whole world is a very narrow bridge.”  Ok.  I get that.  It is a metaphor for the precariousness of life.  It is difficult to know what the best path is, and we are constantly forced to choose between options that could plunge us over the side, not necessarily to literal destruction, but perhaps to spiritual oblivion.  A bit dramatic, but I can accept that.

“But the main thing to recall is to have no fear at all.”  Stop.  That is ridiculous.  Despite the constant danger we face, we are supposed to banish all fear?  Is that really what Rebbe Nachman is saying?  Not only is it a virtually impossible ideal for most human beings, fear is a good thing.  Fear saves lives.  Come on, any ten year old who saw Inside Out knows that.

What is Rebbe Nachman talking about?

The problem is that the person who translated the song into English wanted to make sure that it would rhyme – “the main thing to recall is to have no hear at all.”

Conveniently, it also rhymes with the Hebrew.  Lo l’fached k’lal.  What does k’lal mean?  To be fair, it can mean “at all.”  But I don’t think that is what it means here.

The Hebrew of the verse is quite clever.  The word is repeated three times.  Listen carefully:  Kol ha-olam kulo gesher tzar me’od.  V’ha-ikar lo lefached k’lal.  Kol, Kulo, and K’lal are all from the same root.

Let me suggest a more accurate translation: “The whole world in its entirety is a very narrow bridge.  And the main principle is not to be afraid…”

It could have ended right here.  But then we add the final word.  K’lal.

What is a k’lal?  A k’lal is an all-inclusive principal.  It is a synonym for ikar.  Here, I think it means “And the main principle is not to be afraid entirely.”  We should not be overwhelmed by fear.  Because fear can overwhelm us.

Fear can prevent us from taking action.  It can cloud our vision and prevent us from seeing things as they truly are.  Fear, if we are “entirely” afraid, destroys hope.

But fear also leads us to take risks.  It causes us to reach out to each other.  It inspires religious yearning.  Many of us respond to fear by turning to God.

This morning’s Haftarah, from the Book of Jeremiah, takes place during an extremely fearful time.  Jeremiah is a Prophet who lives during the final years of the Kingdom of Judah, through the reigns of its last four monarchs.  He witnesses the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple and ultimately flees to Egypt with some of the other refugees.  He prophesizes a seventy year period of exile, followed by a return to the Holy Land and a restoration of Israel.

Throughout his career, Jeremiah is a reluctant Prophet.  The people hate him for his pronouncements of doom and destruction and his critique of their behavior, but they are never able to witness the deep love and compassion he feels for them.  The other Prophets ridicule Jeremiah, and the King cannot not stand him.  Along with his external challenges, Jeremiah lives with constant internal struggles.  He argues with God continually, lamenting his plight.  His is a truly tormented soul, but he is unable to prevent the Prophetic message from bursting forth.

As the reading begins, Jeremiah is languishing in prison in Jerusalem.  He is there for speaking truth to power.  Unlike the other court prophets, who are all “yes men,” telling King Zedekiah exactly what he wants to hear, Jeremiah speaks the word of God.

At the time, Jerusalem is under siege by the Babylonians.  Jeremiah issues a pronouncement that God intends to deliver the city into the enemy’s hands.  King Zedekiah himself will be taken captive and sent to Babylon, where King Nebuchadnezzar will triumph over him in person.

Needless to say, the Judean King does not like the message.  He expresses his displeasure by “shooting the messenger,” so to speak.  Jeremiah is thrown into prison.

Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel comes to visit him in prison, as Jeremiah has prophetically foreseen.  Hanamel, it seems, has fallen upon hard times and is no longer able to keep possession of the land that has been his ancestors’ since ancient times.

As we read about in the Torah portion, in ancient Israel, land is supposed to remain in the family.  If property must be sold off temporarily, it will be restored every half century during the Jubilee year.  Until the Jubilee year, however, other members of the family have the right to redeem the land themselves.  In fact, if they have the means to do so, it is an obligation to buy it back.  That is what Hanamel is asking Jeremiah, his heir, to do.  Hanamel cannot keep the land, so he asks his goel, his redeemer, to buy it from him.

It is not really a good time for Jeremiah.

First of all, he is in jail.  His future is uncertain.  Second, the property in question is in Anatot, which is a few kilometers north of Jerusalem.  By this point, the entire country has been ravaged by the Babylonians.  Many Israelites have already been sent into exile, and Jerusalem is under siege.  Finally, Jeremiah knows that he is going to personally go into exile.

Generally speaking, these are not good conditions for real estate speculation.

Nevertheless, Jeremiah purchases the land for seventeen shekels of silver.  He weighs out the money, writes up a contract, and has it witnessed and signed.  Next, he deposits the contract with his personal secretary, Barukh ben Neriah in front of his cousin and the witnesses.  He instructs Barukh to place the document in an earthen vessel so that it will remain safe and unharmed for many years.

Is Jeremiah crazy?  Or is he just a terrible businessman?

Perhaps his statement at the conclusion of the business transaction explains what is going through Jeremiah’s mind.  He declares, “For thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Houses, fields, and vineyards shall again be purchased in this land.'”  (Jer. 32:15)

What could possibly explain Jeremiah’s decision?  In a single word: hope.  Tikvah.

Jeremiah knows, better than anyone, the direness of the situation.  He knows that God has chosen the Babylonians as a Divine instrument to punish Israel for its sinfulness.  He knows that he and many of his brothers and sisters will be forced to leave their land.  He also knows that they will remain in exile for generations – seventy years in all.  But in those seventy years, the Babylonian Empire will fall.  The descendants of the exiles, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will be restored.

Jeremiah’s hopeful realism contrasts with the foolishness of the rest of the nation.  The people, the prophets, and the King do not want to hear Jeremiah’s truth.  Instead, they would rather hear false assurances that things are about to turn around.  The Babylonians will fall and Israel will be made great again.  This is not hope, but wishful thinking.  This is fear blinding the masses from the reality of their situation.

In the second half of the Haftarah, Jeremiah offers a prayer to God.  He recounts God’s power as the Creator of the world, extols God’s compassion, and recalls how God freed the Israelites from slavery and brought them to the Land of Milk and Honey.  Then Jeremiah acknowledges that the people have persisted in not following God’s instructions, leading to the current  crisis.  Jeremiah ends his prayer with a statement that is either a question or a challenge.  “Yet you, Lord God, said to me: Buy the land for money and call in witnesses-when the city is at the mercy of the Chaldeans!”

God’s response:  “Behold I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.  Is anything too wondrous for Me?”  The Haftarah ends here, but God’s response to Jeremiah continues, explaining how the people will eventually return and the land will flourish once again.

While the present situation is bleak, Jeremiah has not given up hope.  He redeems his family’s property now, knowing that he will never personally set foot on it.  But he has hope that his descendants will, one day, make their return.

We are a people that has lived with hope for thousands of years.  Israel’s national anthem Hatikvah, “The Hope,” expresses it beautifully.

Od lo avda tikvateinu, Hatikvah bat sh’not alfayim.  “Our hope is still not lost, the hope of two thousand years.”  Through thousands of years of exile, during some very bleak times, the Jewish people has always had hope.

This is what Rebbe Nachman, living in his difficult times, might have been thinking about.  Despite the darkness, despite the narrowness, the seeming lack of options, we must not be overwhelmed by fear.  We must keep hope.

This is a powerful message for us not only as a nation, but as individual human beings.

We each face a lot of difficulties over the course of our lives.  Sickness, mental illness, abuse, broken relationships, deaths of loved ones.  Some of us have lived through war and persecution.  We have faced financial struggles.  The difficulties we experience sometimes persist for many years.  And some people seem to face more than their share.

Do we have the ability, like Jeremiah, to redeem land in the face of despair.  Can we maintain our hope during dark times?

Can we heed the encouragement of Rebbe Nachman?  Even though the world is a narrow bridge, sometimes vanishingly narrow, can we avoid being consumed by fear?