Jeremiah 14-15;They found no water!

                                                                  Chapter14

 The people are in mourning because there is no rain. There is an outcry; the men cover their heads. They need help, but their behavior continues to not change.

Jonathan: referring to 14:3. This is concerning the droughts in the text (Judah). They are shamed and humiliated…

Why are they shamed?

Ceil: This could just be a translation issue.

Rabbi: No, there is shame and there is punishment.

Joel: This is communal shame.

Ceil: Well, I know that in Appalachia the word ashamed is used for shy.

Julie: Every time the weather takes a turn for the worst the people feel guilty and blame God?

Rabbi:… And conversely all good things are attributed to God.

Joel: God makes the weather. That’s all they know.

Rabbi: Doesn’t this feel very different than Isaiah? Isaiah didn’t include himself in the group. Jeremiah does. For example, “our inequities”,  “our rebellion” He’s preaching from the inside.

Joel: He’s a bit reproachful of God.

Rabbi: Jeremiah is more in the middle of things than Isaiah was. He pleads for the people, but he also agrees with God that they have transgressed.

Jerry: How do the people know who is a false Prophet and who is a true one?

Joel: When in doubt go with the Pessimist. That’s Jewish philosophy. Go with the  “glass half empty” guy!

Bill: So God’s been saying for a few chapters now that there is this terror coming from the North.

Rabbi: Referring to Jeremiah 14:20-22,We acknowledge our wickedness, Oh Lord- The iniquity of our fathers…

This sounds like a Yom Kippur message.

Tim: It does feel like a High Holy  Holiday.

Bill;  So Jeremiah is now pleading on our behalf. God seems to be becoming tougher and he has lost all patience.

Ceil: Well, there has been centuries of spitting in God’s face.

Chapter 15:

Rabbi: Referring to Chapter 15:1, “The Lord said to me, even if Moses and Samuel were to intercede with Me, I would not be won over to that people…. “

It’s not that Jeremiah is less than Moses or Samuel, but rather that the people are so bad. Moses and Samuel came to God after the people had repented, but here there is no sign of repentance.

Jerry: Is Jeremiah challenging Isaiah?

Julie: Why would he if they are saying the same thing?

Jerry: It may be competition.

Rabbi: Jeremiah is so miserable. I don’t think he is competing for this job.

Ceil: Jeremiah may not have been born when First Isaiah would have been prophesying. It’s possible that Jeremiah was influenced by his writing.

Corey: God is so angry. You need to be family to get that angry.

Paul: It’s very “woe is me!”  Could it be different authors?

Julie: Well, We know that Baruch wrote for him and accompanied him as his scribe. He functioned as Robin to his Batman.

Rabbi: The next 800 pages are written during the Babylonian Captivity and return.

In Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story, “The Last Demon”, a Jewish demon arrives at a sleepy European schtetl to weed out the pious from the impious by tempting them.  The little demon sets his sights on the town’s new young Rabbi. Using flattery and pretending to be a voice from God, he tries unsuccessfully to corrupt him. In the end, both the pious and the impious are destroyed by the Nazis. The only one to remain is the little demon, left to read the Yiddish books for eternity. He contemplates the fate of the town’s lost Jews . He says“the generation is already guilty seven times over, but Messiah does not come. Messiah did not come for the Jews, so the Jews went to the Messiah. There is no further need for demons.”  All that is left for the demon is the word:

 “ Aleph, the abyss, what else waited?

Beth, the blow, long since fated.

Gimel, God, pretending He knew,

Daleth, death, its shadow grew,

Hai, the hangman, he stood prepared;

Vov, wisdom, ignorance bard

Zayeen, the zodiac, signs distinctly loomed;

Chet, the child, prenatally doomed.

Tet, the thinker, imprisoned lord;

Yud, the judge, the verdict a fraud. 

So end s an entire generation with questions unanswered. We are all the descendants of the Remnant. So Hebrews, keep reading Torah.

Jeremiah Chapter 13; Your Shame Shall Be Seen

Flax plant in bloom

Flax

                                                                 

 

 

                                                                         Chapter 13

 

As one would teach a child with concrete examples, so God directs Jeremiah with very specific directions involving a loincloth. A piece of intimate apparel worn directly against the loins, Jeremiah is told to bury it so that it decays. An initial reading of this opening verse appears surreal, embarrassing or even pointless, but further reflection reveals that there is a method to this madness. God is fed up and resorts to using his servant Jeremiah as his lead actor and performance artist who will instruct Zion. Jeremiah is meant to experience, on both a visceral and an emotional level, the moral decay of the nation. The people will be humbled to the core of their being

Linen found in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea

Jonathan: referring to 13:1-11 God is commanding Jeremiah to perform a series of actions revolving around a loincloth.

Rabbi: A linen loincloth is a priestly garment. The foot note says that unwashed linen is of a very rough texture.

Ceil: This is very intimate imagery.

Joel: They are being shamed. Jewish morality dictates being humble, demure and clothed. It’s a horrible sin to expose ones private parts in public.

Julie: referring to 13:13-14 “ …and the Kings who sit on the throne of David, and the priests and the prophets and all the inhabitants of Israel…and I will smash them one against the other…

All strata of the nation from the top to the bottom will be taught a lesson. They will be humiliated and brought down to the same level.

Ellen: This sounds like God is getting rid of everyone. I recently saw a documentary called “Fresh” where a farmer killed all his livestock in order to begin with healthy naturally raised animals. It was easier for him to kill them all than to dither with which animals had been genetically altered or managed with antibiotics. So he killed them all.

Julie: This is hubris of the worst kind when someone believes he has the authority to end life. This is because animals are seen as a commodity.

 

Ian: This makes me think of a forest fire that cleans the land from which new growth will then grow.

Ellen: It is the power structure that needs cleansing.

Joel: It’s a selective fire.

Ethan: God is quick to punish but he is also forgiving.

Ceil: The people are brought to the brink and they have the choice to draw back but they don’t.

Rabbi: At this point they do not have a real choice. That possibility has already passed.

Joel: Individuals will die but the nation will survive.

Ellen: This is like orthodox theology. If your actions are not acceptable then all will pay. What’s the point of trying to change? What is the motivation?

Joel: The Medieval Rabbis would then wrestle with the idea of divine reward in the hereafter. This theology begins with Ezekiel and Daniel and goes through the book of the Maccabees. It is picked up in Talmudic discourse. The Rabbis would say that suffering on earth is not

the final punishment. Conversely, if you do good deeds you will be rewarded. But there is no mention of that is this book.

Rabbi: Jeremiah is a very moody Prophet. We see the arch of his life. The people oppress him and he suffers. We see his emotional experiences.

Bill: So, who will survive in exile?

Rabbi: Isaiah says 10%.

Ellen/Bill: We discuss this often –Can we ever live up to God’s expectations?

Ian – The bar is high but it is meant to push us forward.

Ellen: It is immoral to push others to fit a specific morality, whether it is God’s or the Prophets

Jerri: We all have on our 21^st Century goggles and the danger is if we view this situation not simply as modern western people, but as Monday morning quarterbacks. You have to keep this in perspective.

Ceil: But, some things remain true.

Joel: Maimonides would say all of this is a rationalization because we cannot understand God’s mind. When we read the text it appears to be as if God is human, but that is only to understand him better through a human framework.

Ethan: If God can see the past, present and future why is he always so surprised by what occurs and what people do?

Rabbi: The bigger picture is that the Babylonians are coming to wipe out the Judeans, meaning us. How do they understand the geo-political

situation in the context of God? How do they rationalize the moral situation as to why things happen?  We are always living in this tension between our moral actions bringing on Divine retribution and the issue of suffering if there is no communal or individual belief in God.

Julie: Crap just happens!

Ellen: I don’t think God is just going to destroy only the depraved. I believe he would kill moral atheists too just because they don’t believe in him.  If I don’t believe in God is it OK for God to kill me? Jeremiah is “quoting “God.

Joel: We can’t begin to understand God or to try and judge his ways. God kills as part of the natural order of things. That’s really why murder is forbidden to us and capital punishment is proscribed.

Bill: Jeremiah is not saying that God will punish all people. He is saying that those people who are part of the Covenant and have not fulfilled it will be punished.

Ellen: Wars did not occur because we worshipped other gods – they occurred because God directed us to kill others. God asked us to annihilate the Canaanites.

Joel: I know this sounds heretical, but the way God reveals himself as described in Genesis and Exodus to the Prophets changed over time. You can’t judge the Bronze Age God of Exodus against the moral teachings of Isaiah and Jeremiah. They conceive of God in related, but frankly more modern terms.

Ceil: God reveals different faces for different reasons

 

Jerry: Ellen’s point is valid. We feel bad reading all these stories about killing other people in the name of God. This is not moral behavior as we know it.

Ellen: It isn’t moral because God is not always moral.

Rabbi: Yes, it is hard to read this.  But there has never been an ideal world where all people lived in peace. The ancient world was harsh and difficult and we had to contextualize why we suffered. Our survival as a people was dependent upon group cohesion. The Babylonian Exile was one of the most significant traumas in our history and some of the Prophets played a significant role in trying to explain it so that the people, as a nation could come through it intact.

 

                                                   About Linen

The textile linen is made from the Flax plant. The oldest known sample is believed to be 36,000 years old. The mixing of linen with other fibers was considered forbidden in the Torah and is mentioned in Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11. The Jewish historian Josephus suggested that this prohibition was meant to keep the common folk from wearing the official priestly garp. Garmets of mixed fibers were worn by" heathen priests" therefore, Jewish priests possibly used this as a way to seperate themselves from association with idolatry.

Jeremiah Chapter 12: No flesh is safe...

Lincoln by Daniel Chester French begun 1911 and open to the public 1914

 The Prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo, 1542-1545               Chapter 12

 

Immorality and corruption are widespread in Judea and all attempts at ethical reform have collapsed. Jeremiah does perform his duties as Prophet, but he poses the question to God that we still ponder to this day; why is there evil and why does God permit it?

 Rabbi: Referring to 12:1-2 “You will win, O Lord, if I make claim against you, / Yet I shall present charges against you: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?...You have planted them, and they have taken root…

This is the first time that Jeremiah or anyone in the text has asked the questions: Why is there evil? Why is it allowed to exist? 

Julie: Jeremiah is calling God out and he is respectfully requesting an answer. If you are all powerful, why not stop it?

Rabbi:  referring to 12: 5 “If you race with the foot-runners and they exhaust you/ How then can you compete with horses?”

  God replies by advising Jeremiah to toughen up. He is telling him that the task set before him will get even tougher. Your own townspeople have turned against you, so be prepared for far worse.

12:7 God is lamenting that he is forced to punish Israel, the bride that he loves.

Julie: This is sort of like, I had to smack her for her own good – she made me hit her.

Rabbi: And, those who punish you (referring to the Babylonian Empire) will be smacked down as well.

Julie: Are the Babylonians being punished because they have gone too far? It is God‘s plan to use them to punish Israel? If so, why punish them if they are merely fulfilling his goal?

Jerry: Is this Jeremiah’s interpretation or is this God’s voice? I can’t tell which is which.

Rabbi: Maybe their (the Babylonian Empire’s) usefulness is up. Maybe they have punished the Jews too harshly, but we as a people are meant to grow from this experience.

Joel: There was a documentary about Abraham Lincoln on PBS. The amazing thing is that Lincoln went from being a moderate on slavery which meant simply to not  advance slavery into new territory, to advocating settling  freed African Americans in Liberia, to writing the Emancipation Proclamation, to advocating blacks to get the vote, all in a space of 5 years. It’s an amazing evolution.

Jane: Lincoln always thought that black people were inferior until he met Fredrick Douglas. Emancipated slaves were protected under the War Powers Act. This was a specific legal decision based on his executive prerogative as the head of the Army. He may not have believed that black people were equal, but he did believe they were entitled to the same rights as whites under the law.

Joel: I believe that the Prophets went through the same process.  Like Lincoln, the Prophets saw death all around them and that all that death had to have a higher purpose. For Lincoln it was the 650,000 deaths of the Civil War. For the Prophets it was the Babylonian invasion and exile. We, the Jews were to be transformed by the experience, the cauldron of “the fiery furnace” first mentioned in Deuteronomy.

Jerry: Jeremiah is asking the question – “How long will we be in exile?”

Rabbi: The Prophets were good at reading the political tea leaves. They couldn’t predict the length of time they would be in exile, but they knew exile was a real possibility.

12: 14-15 “…I will uproot the house of Judah…then, I will take them back into favor…”

Julie: they will be punished but eventually they will be brought back. It is the shaping of this historical material that leads the Prophets to create a new Judaism, a more modern Judaism

Jeremiah Chapter 11: They fashioned their plots...

One of the 11 Qumran Caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

A Dead Sea Scroll and jar

Chapter 11

The Lord directs Jeremiah to remind the people of the covenant

that they had made at Sinai. They do not uphold their agreement

either communally or as individuals, so they are slated for a

purging punishment. There are many references made to earlier

books via the “newly discovered” book of Deuteronomy found

within the Temple. Found within the Temple under the reign of

King Josiah, it is used as the collective memory meant to jostle

the people back into partnership with God.  Because they have

not accepted their responsibilities they have forfeited their right

to the land. Soon they will be exiled and spit out from Zion. They

are no longer a protected nation as they have fallen prey to

idolatrous influences.

Rabbi: Chapter 11 refers us back to the terms of our covenant.

They have found the Deuteronomic text.  Jeremiah is preaching

during this time.

Julie: referring to 11:5 “in order to fulfill the oath which I swore

to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and

honey…”

Where have we seen this line before?

Rabbi: It is from Exodus  3:8 “ I have come down to rescue them

from the Egyptians and to bring them out of the land to a good

and spacious land, flowing with milk and honey…”

Joel: referring to 11:4. The Egypt experience is being compared to

an iron crucible. From crisis a new theology is being forged. The

reference is not to the covenant with an individual but rather one

with a nation. As metal is forged, so are we as a nation.

Paul: The people cannot change their spots in time so how

seriously is this warning? They are going to be punished

regardless!

Rabbi: True. God told the people what to do. They know what is

expected but do not obey. Punishment has been decided and

cannot be stopped.

Bill: referring to 11:7:  “Obey my commandments.” It’s too late!

It’s frustrating to think that this is being said for no reason.

Rabbi: God is reminding them to keep up their end of the deal.

There is lots of unrest in the Middle East during this time and the

people are easily led astray. The Deuteronomic text is a great

reminder of our covenant and it is a way to politically and socially

cement us back to our past, to the first four books of the Torah.

Jerry: It was needed as a unifying agent which changed the

perception of the past clarifying and radicalizing ideas and

practices in Judaism.

Bill: Does anyone have an original copy of Deuteronomy?

Rabbi: No, not in its entirety. The oldest portions can be found in

the Dead Sea Scrolls. You can view them on line at

“deadseascrolls.org”. 

There are numerous caves scattered throughout the Jordan

valley on the Israeli side. A shepherd boy tending to his flocks

found the urns that contained some of the scrolls. Fortunately he

brought them to someone who could authenticate them. More

artifacts were found in1967 once we got the land back.

Bill: We are expected to follow the terms of the Covenant but

God will not listen to the people’s cries when he brings down his

judgment.

Julie: In the Amidah prayer we praise God and then petition for

his favor.  Jeremiah Chapter 10:25 is the 19^th blessing in the


prayer, but we are asking for God to bring down his wrath against


those who do not obey. We are the ones who do not obey. The


Babylonian Empire is God’s tool. So, in essence aren’t we asking


to be disciplined in the Amidah?

Group: No Response.

Bill: The prophet Isaiah seems to have focused more on Exile as a

response to sin rather than Jeremiah.

Joel: That’s not really true. Each major Prophet has his own

personality and his own response to Exile as a religious and

political reality. Isaiah is a visionary and poet, Jeremiah seems

more like a hard-hitting no nonsense complainer and

Ezekiel sounds like he’s is on drugs, but they all deal with aspects


of Exile and why the situation is occurring as a response to the

behavior  of the Children of Israel.

Jane: They represent different perspectives so that they can reach

different people in the society.

Rabbi: Referring to 11: 21 “ .. concerning the men of Anathoth

who seek your (Jeremiah’s) life…”

Anathoth is a town.  Jeremiah has incited the anger of his own

town’s people. They are turning against him. In Chapter 18:18, the

people are clearly plotting his demise. Jeremiah winds up being

taken by Judeans to Egypt where he dies. The Talmud insists he

died a martyr’s death.

Julie: Referring to 11:19  “For I was like a docile lamb,/led to the

slaughter;”

Jeremiah sounds like he has been set up. He sounds like he

realizes that the jig is up for him. He doesn’t seem so happy with

God.

Bill: This sounds like Jewish guilt. “Look at me, woe is me. Why

me God”?

Rabbi: The people of Anathoth, similar to tyrants, will try to

silence him as he speaks the truth.

Bill: Tyrants always try to silence those who stir up the pot. It’s

the people who speak up who suffer by those in power. Do you

think the rich Judeans and those who would broker a deal with

Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian King want to hear this stuff?

Joel: This is typical Prophet’s behavior. They get the call to

prophecy from God directly. They protest.They claim they do not

have the stuff to lead. They say they are not up to the task. They

may be fearful. Look at Moses, the greatest leader of the Jews.

Look at Jonah. The point is not what they want, but what God

wants from them. Eventually their skill level is raised by the task

at hand, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a price to pay on an

individual level. Jeremiah, may bemoan his particular fate, but

knows that the job must be done.

Jeremiah Chapter 10: Pour Out Your Wrath...

Tension is building as the people disregard their covenant with God. In the Temple the priests provide sacrificial offerings to Yahweh as well as to false pagan gods. The people bow to golden and silver idols while the poor go hungry. Once again, God lays out the reasons for the coming punishment which will be meted out by the Babylonian Empire. Jeremiah tries in vain to intervene on behalf of the people but their transgressions have worn down God’s patience.

                                                        Chapter 10 

Julie: referring to 10:1-10. The ways of nations, portents in the sky

and idols made of silver and wood are delusions but God is true.

That’s a real leap of faith. Most people need something physical.

Bill: So there are other gods?

Rabbi: The people believe in other gods but they are false.

Jane: I think the point of these verses is to show that the people

are placing their faith in something false and it will come to no

good and cannot help them.

Joel: There seems to be a split in the logic of the Torah, where God

presides over the defeat and demise of other God’s or at least

their ghosts and a universe where God is alone and the only deity. 

 In Greek mythology Zeus kills the other gods because he is more

powerful. This logic is reflected in the worship of common people

in the time according to the Prophets, but the Prophets state the

counter belief is false. 

Rabbi: This can be seen in different ways: God is the only god and

the people worship falsely or there are lesser gods that are not as

powerful as God.

Bill: We do not permit images of God.

Rabbi: well, we depict cherubim and other similar imagery.

Julie: I don’t think depicting God is necessarily a reflection of more

or less sophistication in a culture. For the Jewish people the

transition from the worship

of an “idolatrous” statue of a Golden Calf in the book of Exodus, to

blemish free Red Heifer calf offered in ritual sacrifice in the book

of Leviticus, may both be the transitional objects to a point where

merely prayer is our doorway to God.

Bill: I think there was communal guilt over the Golden Calf

business so we came up with a red heifer.

Jane: referring to 10:23 “I know, O Lord, that man’s road is not his

(to choose),/That man, as he walks, cannot direct his own steps.”

Is this a contradiction regarding free will? Is everything

predetermined?

Rabbi: I think it is calling attention to the fact that man stumbles a

and that we are flawed.

Julie: Jeremiah believes in God so it is a forgone conclusion that

the right way is God’s way and we need his direction.

Joel: There is a political reality to these situations. Judeans live in a

small country subject to the whims of political empire and

conquest .God is seen as transcendental, the Lord of all things. He

is the creator of good and bad events that are essentially outside of

man’s control and understanding. 

Rabbi: referring to 10:23-25.  Jeremiah is really overwrought. He is

playing different roles and it feels very raw. He is pleading on

behalf of the people but is also in agreement with God that they

have gone the wrong way.

10:25 “Pour out your wrath, lest You reduce me to naught, /Pour out your wrath on the nations who have not heeded you,…”

Julie: This sounds very familiar. Don’t we say something like this

when we open the door for Elijah?

Note: From the Passover Haggadah addressing the Prophet Elijah:

“Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not recognize You

and upon the kingdoms that do not invoke Your Name. For they

have devoured Jacob and destroyed His habitation. Pour Your

anger upon them and let Your fiery wrath overtake them

Pursue them with wrath and annihilate them from beneath the

heavens of the Lord.”

This passage is partly co-opted from Psalm 79 attributed to King

David, which vents rage upon the enemies of Israel. The question is

whether this passage is merely vengeful against all non-Jews? It

clearly centers on retribution for the enemies of the people of Israel

and limits negative attributions to only those of violent intent.

Furthermore, it can also be said that in this invocation  only

polytheistic pagans are addressed as both Christianity and Islam

consider themselves to be “Children of Abraham “ and accepters of

monotheistic faith, whether they feel like the sole heirs of this

tradition or not. Therefore it must be said that although Prophets

like Isaiah and Jeremiah are not universal preachers of love, their

preaching must be understood against the historical context in

which they preached.

Damien Hirst's "Golden Calf". Selling at 17.9 million dollars.