Behar-Be-Hukkotai (Leviticus 25-27): Haftorah is Jeremiah 16:19-17:14
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California — This poetic text indicates Jeremiah’s commitment to God, despite his failures to successfully correct Judea’s wayward behaviors. The background is the coming destruction of the Southern Kingdom and Solomon’s Temple, with exile of their leaders by Babylon. Jeremiah’s prophesy career is experienced as repeated rejection.
This Haftorah’s connection to the above double Torah reading is that both depict blessings and curses in relation to observance vs. failed observance of the Law. [1] For the English translation and sentiments, I quote the work of Professor Robert Alter of the University of California at Berkeley, from his opus, The Hebrew Bible. [2]
Jeremiah’s prophesies with warnings of punishment extended over
the period of c. 625-586 BCE. At Judea’s destruction, he was taken by a small cadre of followers to Egypt, where he died.
By way of reminder, Jeremiah was continuously frustrated by his failure to exhort his listeners to his words. He was: ridiculed; jailed more than once; threatened with assassination by the priests; and had his writings burned by King Zedekiah (597-586 BCE) only to have Baruch, his scribe, rewrite them. [3] He was invariably a prisoner to his prophesy assignments from ‘above,’ a slave to perceived demands from God. He got no relief from his several pleadings to discard the whole prophesy project.
Also politics were operative in Jeremiah. Judea had made an alliance with Egypt, in an attempt to resist Babylon, and Jeremiah accurately warned that move was a hopeless delusion. [4]
I need also mention that the English noun ‘jeremiad’ is based upon his complaining tirades. His accusations included ‘whoring after strange gods.’
Also, though he was a reasonably capable poet, scholars such as Alter feel his writings do not exhibit the level of verbal virtuosity of either Isaiah I or Isaiah II. [5]
Here are key passages in this Haftorah:
It opens with a declaration in the name of God:
The Lord is my strength and my stronghold,
and my refuge on a day of distress.
To You the nations shall come
from the ends of the earth and shall say:
But to lies our fathers were heir,
mere breath that cannot avail.
Can a human make him a god,
when these are not gods?…
(Next come poetic accusations)
Judah’s offense is written
with a pen of iron,
incised with an adamantine (unbreakable) point
on the tablet of their hearts
and on the horns of their altars, [6]….
He then goes on to menacingly warn:
Your wealth, all your treasures,
I will turn into booty,
your offending high places in all your regions….
And I will make you serve your enemies
in a land you did not know.
For fire rages in My nostrils,
forever shall it burn.
Jeremiah persists:
Cursed be the man who trusts in humans,
and makes mortal flesh his strong arm.
And he shall be like an arid shrub in the desert…
And he shall dwell in scorched places in the wilderness,
a barren land that cannot be settled.
Here he turns 180 degrees:
Blessed be the man who trusts in the Lord,
and the Lord becomes his trust.
And he shall be like a tree planted by waters,
and by a stream it sends forth its roots,
and it shall not see when the heat wave comes,
and its leaves shall be flush,
and in a drought year it shall have no care
and never cease from yielding fruit. [7]
Jeremiah then attributes God’s function:
I am the Lord who probes the heart,
testing the conscience
and allotting to a man according to his ways
according to the fruit of his deeds,
A partridge that hatched but did not lay [8]
is he who makes wealth but not in justice.
Now comes the mandatory Haftorah upbeat ending:
Israel’s hope is in the Lord.
All who forsake you shall be shamed…
Heal me, O Lord, that I may be healed,
rescue me, that I may be rescued
for You are my praise.
The reader sees here the strong informed feelings of Jeremiah, including his frustration. He was aware of and haunted by the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel 136 years earlier by Assyria, resulting in ten lost tribes. He sees now the imminent destruction of his Southern Kingdom by the new power, Babylon—now attributed by him to Judea’s corruption and descent into paganism.
This descent is a common theme among all the prophets. Will we moderns ever find a sustained period whereby the ancient Hebrews and their leaders actually practiced the Law?
Jeremiah wishes to escape his perceived mandate by God, thus intermittently expresses tormented reluctance. He was a kind of prisoner of conscience. [9]
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NOTES
[1] Etz Hayim,The Jewish Publication Society, 2001, New York, p. 762
[2] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Prophets Vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, pp. 916-920
[3] Ibid, Alter, p. 850; ‘his captors cast him into a deep, dried up cistern with muck at the bottom, with intention to let him die.’
[4] Ibid, Alter, p. 851-852
[5] Ibid, Alter, p. 851
[6] Ibid, Alter, p. 917, strong metaphors
[7] strong descriptive simile, plus good observations on plant biology, accompanied by the expected help of God, Ibid, Alter, p. 918
[8] a bird that sits on and hatches another’s egg, Ibid, Alter, p. 919
[9] Ibid, Alter, p. 850-851
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Irv Jacobs, M.D., is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.