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July 5, 2002/Tamuz 25 5762, Vol. 54, No. 42
Jeremiah still speaks to us
Torah study
DR. NEIL GILLMAN
Mattot-Masei/30:2-36:13
Our liturgy mandates that on the three Shabbatot before Tisha B'Av, we recite three haftorah portions of rebuke. The first two of these, last Shabbat and this one, are from the prophet Jeremiah. My renewed encounter with these texts this year awoke a host of associations.
The most powerful one was my memory of my student years at the seminary and of Professor Shalom Spiegel. Spiegel was a mesmerizing teacher. As he began to lecture, the drab classroom was transformed. We were standing in the courtyards of sixth century B.C.E. Jerusalem. Jeremiah was present before us, and his words leapt out of the text and spoke to us directly.
I still have my class notes of that course, and I can mark the places where I simply put down my pen and sat entranced, as this master dramatist brought Jeremiah back to life.
My other associations are with certain words that Jeremiah uses. As we know, the authorities who determined the breaks in the Torah readings and the selection of haftorah portions were reluctant to conclude a portion on a negative note.
This haftorah follows that pattern. The theme overall is one of stinging rebuke. Its last verse reads: "Where are those gods you made for yourself? Let them arise and save you, if they can, in your hour of calamity. For your gods have become ... as numerous as your towns." (Jeremiah 2:28)
The haftorah could not possibly end on that note. Instead, we have two alternative concluding passages, one used by the Ashkenazic tradition, and the other, by the Sephardic. Both are inserted here totally outside their original contexts. The Ashkenazic conclusion is the fourth verse of chapter three, the Sephardic is the first two verses of chapter four.
It is the second of these, the Sephardic practice, that interests me, even though my Ashkenazic congregation will not recite it this Shabbat. It is a message of repentance and it reads in part, "If you return to Me, if you remove your abominations from My presence ... in sincerity, justice and righteousness - nations shall bless themselves by you and praise themselves by you." (Jeremiah 4:1-2)
I know a lot more than I did 50 years ago, and it is manifestly clear to me now that here, Jeremiah is quoting almost verbatim from a key passage in the Abraham narrative.
When God is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the Torah text gives us a peek into God's inner motivations. God muses, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham is to become a great and populous nation, and all the nations of the earth are to bless themselves by him? For I have singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right." (Genesis 18:17-19)
Jeremiah echoes two themes in God's covenant with Abraham. First, God's promise that all the nations of the world are to bless themselves by him, which means that Abraham will serve as a role model for all of humanity. Second, what is distinctive about Abraham? What makes him a role model? He keeps "the way of the Lord." And what does that entail? It entails "doing what is just and right."
This then is the brunt of Jeremiah's message of redemption to his community and to us. This is what Israel is meant to be: a role model for all of humanity. How? By living justly and righteously. There is nothing new about that message, Jeremiah adds. It goes back to our very origins as a people. It goes back to Abraham.
Shalom Spiegel would have been proud of that association.
Rabbi Neil Gillman is professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary.
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