Who said these words? “Don’t say you’re too young to do it.” “Don’t be scared of them.” “Good job [seeing what there is to see].” “You’ll be as strong as a fortified city or an iron pillar.”
Who said these words? A life coach? A parent to a child? No. God to Jeremiah. All those words are quotes from this week’s haftarah, the first of the three haftarot of rebuke we read during this three week mourning period for the destruction of the Temples, culminating in Tisha B’Av. This week we read Jeremiah 1-2:3, and we hear God say all those words to Jeremiah at the start of his career as a prophet.
The theme of these haftarot is ostensibly rebuke – God’s anger at the people for various sins and in general, for abandoning His worship. But here, where we begin in Jeremiah, we find another undertone – not so much rebuke as chizuk, personal “strengthening” and encouragement.
The question is one of identification. With whom do we identify in the passage? With the people of Israel, immersed in sin, being blamed and punished here by God, or with Jeremiah the prophet, being initiated into a task to fight evil in the world? The focus of the text in this chapter is primarily on Jeremiah, and begs us to identify with him. We are a nation of prophets, every one of us called to stand strong and fight evil in the world. From this perspective, the message becomes less blame and more empowerment, less rebuke and more chizuk.
This three week period is the designated time to think and mourn over the destruction of the Temples along with the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout history. One can easily be swallowed up in negativity, in the sense of gloom and doom of many of the prophetic passages, and in the sense of hopelessness that also often attends our thinking about our own world – from climate change to the Taliban to the ever-increasing economic gap in our society.
That’s why I think it is no accident that the haftarot for this period begin with Jeremiah 1-2:3, with a message of encouragement and empowerment to fight the evil. The answer to negativity is not hopelessness, but empowerment to demand change. God understands that what stands in the way of prophetic action – not just for Jeremiah, but for most people – is fear and a lack of confidence – I am just a na’ar, “a young lad,” says Jeremiah; I’ve never done this before; I don’t know how. The message from God is: I am with you; you will be strong; you are good and capable at doing this. This is a message not just for Jeremiah, but for each of us in our own way, a message that leads not to guilt and blame and depression, but to empowerment to create change and a positive future.
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Great. I wonder if we're both at once, rebuker and rebuked, feeling like we're punished and knowing that we*re better than that.
ReplyDeleteThanks!