Yirmiyahu 1:1-2:3

Note that this week’s haftarah, and the nine after it, are chosen for their connection to the themes of this season of the year—destruction and comfort—rather than the Torah readings with which they happen to coincide. That is why, for example, we are reading this haftarah for Pinhas when it is printed in humashim as for Matot; it is in fact neither, but the haftarah for the first Shabbat of the Three Weeks.

The Tragedy in Yirmiyahu’s Predestination

Yirmiyahu opens his book with the word “divrei,” which happens only a few times in Tanach, and the Midrash says that it signals a text of “divrei kinturin,” complaints and negative words. From his first word, Yirmiyahu is cast in the role of a complainer, whose message focused on the Jewish people’s negatives.

His lineage highlights the poignancy of that fact. Radak notes that it was his father who found a Torah scroll in the Temple and read it to Yoshiyahu, sparking a time of intense repentance. As Radak points out, Yirmiyahu got his first prophecy five years before that incident and continued way after. That Yirmiyahu was the son of such a man, and was already serving as a prophet when his father had that great success, heightens the pathos in the people’s refusal to be moved to similar improvement by his words, that he instead had to watch them decline to Destruction.

We can deepen our understanding of the tragedy of his life by remembering that Hashem informs him that he was created to be this prophet. Like others whom Avot de-Rabbi Natan sees as having been born circumcised, Yirmiyahu was invested with a task from birth. There are more minimal ways to read this, such as Radak’s view that it only means he was given the intellect and imagination necessary for prophecy, but the text seems to suggest that Hashem is saying that Yirmiyahu’s life was more predetermined than most of ours.

Asking a Boy to Perform a Man’s Job

The Sifrei notes parallels between Yirmiyahu and Moshe’s careers: both prophesied for 40 years and both rebuked the Jews for their failings. The parallels sharpen our understanding of his protests of his youth. Yirmiyahu correctly points out that Moshe started his career at eighty, and even then only fully rebuked the people at the end of a career that involved leading them through many positive events, such as the Exodus from Egypt, the Splitting of the Sea, the giving of the Torah, and so on. Yirmiyahu is being required to go straight to rebuke with no chance to establish a positive relationship or even to learn how to remonstrate with the people in a way they might accept.

Verses 7-10 do little to assuage his worries. Hashem tells rejects his complaints, tells him he has to go where Hashem sends him, do what Hashem tells him without fear, confident that Hashem is with him. Yirmiyahu was not given the same right to pick his course in life as the rest of us, nor even to wait until he felt up to that task.

Verses 11-19: Two Introductory Visions

The rest of the chapter tells of his first two visions, training runs for the ones to come. That is, the message of each seems less significant than showing Yirmiyahu his skill at interpreting the visions sent him.
In the first, Yirmiyahu is asked what he sees, and he says a “makel shaked,” an almond stick. Hashem praises his description, since it grasps not only the budding destruction, but that Hashem is “shoked,” is hurrying, to bring about His plans.

The second vision, of the boiling pot with its face to the North, tells us that the Destruction will come from the North, with Yirmiyahu again praised for the detail of his rendering of the vision. The emphasis on his skill suggests that he and perhaps other prophets had to apply some skill to their visions, that they could not simply record what they saw, they had to absorb it and then record it. (This is in contrast to Moshe Rabbenu who was told what to write word for word).

Chapter 2, Verses 1-3: A Convenient Ending or a Substantive One?

The last three verses of the haftarah come from chapter 2 of the book, which might have meant they should be read as part of next week’s haftarah, which picks up where this one left off. Leaving aside possible technical answers, I see these verses as providing closure to the section we’ve read. We have met Yirmiyahu beginning to serve as prophet of doom long before it was even a possibility on anyone’s horizon, predestined for a difficult life in which he is required to focus, more singlemindedly than the rest of the prophets, on the Jews’ lacks, the reasons they will end his career with the Destruction of the Beit haMikdash.

Seeing God set up a prophet of such doom so far in advance of punishment would, for a human judge, imply a lack of openmindedness. By closing our haftarah with a reminder of our historically better relationship with Hashem, we are being told that Hashem takes no pleasure in the punishment being predicted, that Hashem is being “forced” by our actions to adopt a particular posture and effect on our lives.

Yirmiyahu’s Tragedy and Ours

If the evil coming to the Jewish people had already been determined, perhaps irrevocably, Yirmiyahu’s role raises questions. It seems impossible that he would be forced to spend his life rebuking the people and predicting a destruction that had already been determined. What we are meant to realize, especially as part of the Three Weeks, is that much of the destruction was not predetermined. Such issues as the fate of the Beit haMikdash and whether the whole people would have to go into Exile were decidedly still open to better outcomes than came about. Indeed, had the Jews responded better to his prophecies, he might have spent more of his time focused on non-Jews.

So the point of the haftarah is to introduce us to Yirmiyahu, meaning a prophet sent forty years before the coming of a disaster, to help the Jews see and avoid as much of it as possible. As the Jews of that time failed to heed him, we are meant to read this week’s haftarah and try to avoid a similar outcome. As Rambam says, we fast today because our actions are like those of our forefathers. Rectifying those failings are the way to extricate ourselves from the Diaspora, to return to a rebuilt Temple, Israel, and Davidic Kingdom. Shabbat Shalom.

Jer.1

[1] The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin:
[2] To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
[3] It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
[4] Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[5] Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
[6] Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.
[7] But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
[8] Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
[9] Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.
[10] See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.
[11] Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
[12] Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.
[13] And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north.
[14] Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.
[15] For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.
[16] And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.
[17] Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
[18] For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land.
[19] And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.
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Jer.2

[1] Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
[2] Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.
[3] Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall offend; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.