Jeremiah Chapter 2

Dr. Esther Shkop

Jeremiah, Chapter 2. 

Jeremiah 2:1 The word of Hashem came to me, saying, 2:2 “Go and call out in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus says Hashem: I recall for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your nuptials, your following me into the Wilderness, into an unsown land.  2:3 Israel is holy to Hashem, the first of His crop; all who devour it will be held guilty; evil shall come upon them – the word of Hashem. 

 

There is an open space, patuach, between the end of 2:3 and beginning of 2:4.  This is a masoretic division, transition to a new topic, like a new stanza in a poem. 

Archbishop of Canterbury divided Tanach into chapters – close to mesorah, tradition, but not exactly.  For instance, the chapter 2 of Bereishis, Genesis, ends after sixth day.  It should end after Shabbat.  The Christian Church decided to move Shabbat from Saturday to Sunday.  Early Christians  tried to keep with the Jewish traditions.  They stated correctly that goyyim, non-Jews, don’t need to keep 613 mitzvoth, commandments.  Their religion was not about the rules, but focused on spirituality – connection to G-d. 

 

We, Jews, have special responsibilities.  We are not supposed to bring converts.  Contrary to the common belief, Abraham did not convert people to Judaism, but brought them to observe the laws of Noah.  Church gave up on converting Jews.  They argued not to keep any mitzvoth relevant to Jews. 

 

What defines Jews?  Three things:

1)      Shabbat

2)      Kashruth

3)      Taharat Mishpahah (family purity)

The rest of the world worked all the time.  Shabbat is a revolutionary idea.  They wanted the same, but not the same  way – so they invented Sunday. 

 

So they made the part of Bereishit about Shabbat into a new chapter, to show Shabbat as a beginning of a new week.

 

In Jeremiah chapter 1 the space indicates going from one dream, or vision, to another.  Pharaoh’s two dreams  were one, same in Jeremiah the two visions are one. 

At the end of chapter 1 there is a tab, complete open space, then another space.

 

The word leimor in 2:1 indicates a public prophecy, meant to be transmitted to Jerusalem.  The second leimor indicates further transmission to future generations.

 

2:3 Israel is holy, sanctified to Hashem – this is the phrase a groom says to his bride – you are sanctified to me.  No matter what we do, how far we strayed, we remain G-d’s chosen ones – neum Hashem – signed and sealed. 

 

The first paragraph 2:1 – 2:3 transmitted the word of G-d.  In 2:4 it is Jeremiah speaking.

 

2:4 Hear the word of Hashem, O House of Jacob and all families of the House of Israel: 2:5 Thus says Hashem: What wrong did your forefathers find in Me, that they distanced themselves from Me and pursued futility, and became futile?

This represents a rebuke – the word avel means wrong, unrighteousness, infidelity. It is used by Moshe in Haazinu – Deuteronomy 32:4 el emuna v’ein avel a God of faith without iniquity, righteous and fair. 

 

2:6 But they did not say, ‘Where is Hashem, Who brought  up from the land of Egypt, Who led us in the Wilderness, in a land of desert and pit, in the land of waste and the shadow of death, in a land through which no man passed and no man settled?

They ran after worthless things. They did not say “where is God?” They did not seek God. 

They did not really believe in idols, but idolatry allowed them to create a system where they could do whatever they wanted. 

They went through plains – aravah ­– and pits, valleys, land of thirst and land of the shadow of death.  Beyond the desert – plain and pits.  Shadow of death – when we were close to annihilation, when we sinned. 

Psalm 23:4 Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.  This brings an image of a lamb, and a vulture as an imminent threat – this could be a disease, or an enemy, a threat, where you least expect it, but its presence is palpable.  It also brings the sense of complete isolation and loneliness, sense of abandonment (Abarbanel).  

2:6 … in a land through which no man passed and no man settled

This pasuk brings the sense of waiting for somebody – when  someone you love is gone – it seems like this person is here and you have to remind yourself that she is not.  People who love us most are too often taken for granted.  Sometimes their company becomes boring and we look for excitement in all the wrong places. 

 

2:7 I brought you into a fruitful land, to eat its fruit and bounty; but you came and contaminated My land, and made My heritage into an abomination. 

There is a difference between the two terms used in this pasuk:  tumah – contamination, and toeivah – abomination.  Tumah – uncleanness is a part of life, natural cycle, state of death, as opposed to taharah – state of renewal and rebirth.  “I am with you in your tumah”, as the natural state of life.  When Kohen prepares ashes of red heifer he becomes temporarily unclean, tumeh – death is part of this world.

Toeivah – abomination, as used in chapters 19 – 20 of Leviticus, is the state where G-d’s presence does not dwell.  Nahalah is a place where G-d decides to rest his presence.  The problem is when we willfully commit acts of toeivah – abomination.  He cannot abide in such place, for this will bring divine anger and destruction, so rather than destroy everything He abandons the world. 

 

2:8 The Kohanim did not say, ‘Where is Hashem?’; those charged with teaching the Torah did not know Me; the shepherds rebelled against Me; the prophets prophesied by the Baal; and they went after those that cannot avail.

So He says: why did not you say “Where is G-d?”  They did not seek G-d, did not ask what have we done wrong that He left, what can we do to bring Him back.  They were learned, great scholars, but they did not know G-d, did not seek His presence.

Learning but not internalizing.  When you truly know, you are transformed, you become another person.  To love is to get under someone’s skin, to let another personality become part of you. They learned, but did not change, did not know G-d, learned only intellectually.  They were going through rituals, but were not transformed.

“I will write it on the tablets of your heart”.

 

2:8 … the shepherds rebelled against Me… 2:9 Therefore I will yet contend with you – the word of Hashem – and with your children’s children I will contend. 

Who were the shepherds – the rulers, the kings.  The irony is that everywhere else in the Tanach it is our enemies who ask “Where is your G-d?”, but here Jeremiah rebukes Jews for not asking “Where is G-d?”. 

Rabbi Shmuel Salant was a rabbi in the old city of Jerusalem, kind and sensitive man.  He had a bowl of pebbles on his desk.  People came to him to ask a question, gave him money for charity, and he gave everyone a pebble.  When asked why he gives out pebbles, he said “I know that for all good deeds that I’ve done one day you are going to stone me, so I try to make sure at least you use small stones”.  Good deeds don’t go unpunished.  Our troubles from generation to generation comes from the fact that we are not seeking God. 

 

2:10 Traverse the isles of the Kittites and observe, send forth into Kedar and consider deeply – and see whether there has ever been such a thing. 2:11 Has a nation ever exchanged its gods, though they are not genuine gods?  Yet My people had exchanged its Glory for something of no avail.

Kittim are the Greek isles in the Aegean sea.  Go out among the Greek isles and see, has a nation abandon its gods, even if they are not real.  Neither Plato, nor Aristotle believed in Greek gods, these were myths, and that’s how they were treated.  But Plato wrote about the value of myths, as they were part of the national fabric, the nation’s glory, carriers of its values.  Kedar is another faraway place, near Yemen, see if there was ever such thing.  And My nation exchanged its honor for something that was not even good for them.  The history of Jews in Russia, falling after the Marxist theories, making a majority of the Communist party elite in the early years of the Bolshevist rule, before they were exterminated, one by one.  People who knew what they were leaving behind, who had the spirit, and followed the falsehood. 

Throughout history Halloween was the night when church gave commoners free hand to harass and murder Jews, it was the night of pogroms, and now American Jews happily don the costumes and run trick-o-treating, following majority for evil. 

There is a part of us that makes us cheap.  Minority amongst many, trying to fit in.  Mechanism of abdicating individual responsibility.  Way of hiding from oneself, from your own divinity, becoming part of blind mass.

2:11 …My people had exchanged its Glory – k’vodo

Kavod is the concept of your substance, its root comes from the word kaved, heavy.  This is not something that someone else gives you.  Kavod – they gave away their soul. 

To give away your soul is to give up your individuality, morality, uniqueness, when that happens you have no right to exist.  If you conform, you’ll be safer, less prosecuted, more comfortable.  In fact, history shows that the opposite is true: the prosecution is the harshest in countries of most assimilation.  Curious example of Japan, where there are no native Jews, but it has a high rate of anti-Semitism. 

Volozhin 1819 – we became many, the land was filled with us, Jews spread out of Ghettos – the rabbi of Volozhin compared this with Jews in times of Pharaoh spreading out of Ghoshen throughout the Egypt, he predicted that the greatest persecution will happen in countries where we are most liberated.

 

2:12 Be astounded, O heavens, over this; rage forth in storm, be greatly devastated – the word of Hashem.  2:13 For My people has committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the Source of living waters, to dig for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold the water.

Shomu shamayim – desolate heavens, mourn, o heavens, over this. 

Two evil things: 1) left source of living waters 2)  to dig for themselves broken cisterns.

Be’er – spring of water that you dig out, the well.  If you don’t find a natural spring coming from under ground, you dig a cistern to collect rainwater.  But if it cracks, the water sips out.  This is a metaphor not only for religious, but also the political betrayal.  Shlomo married a daughter of Pharaoh and a daughter of the king of Tyre, to create alliances, to build security through treaties.  This worked for a little while, then unravelled.  Similar to the non-aggression pact between Russia and Germany of 1939, that Germany planned to keep only for a little while. 

Israel tried to establish its existence through 1) war 2) alliances.  The alliance is formed through having something in common, becoming like another nation. 

 

2:14 Is Israel a slave? Is he born to a house maid? Why has he become prey? 2:15 Young lions have roared over him, they have raised their voice. They made his land wasteland; his cities have been devastated, without inhabitant. 2:16 Even the people of Noph and Tahpanhes smash your skull.

Noph is Memphis in Egypt.

 

2:17 Has this not been done to you because you forsake Hashem, your God, when He leads you on the path? 2:18 And now, what is there for you on the road to Egypt, to drink the waters of the Nile? And what is there for you on the road to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates?

Israel was trying to re-establish peace treaties with Egypt and Assyria against Babylon.

 

2:19 Your evil shall castigate you; your waywardness shall chasten you; realize and understand that your forsaking of Hashem, your God, is evil and bitter, and that My awe was not upon you – the word of my Lord, Hashem/Elohim, Master of Legions.

V’lo pachdati elaich – what does it mean – for next week.