Meditation on Jeremiah Prophet of Hope
Most years, Rosh Hashana arrives and many of us feel unfairly taken by surprised, unprepared.
This year, I feel we are all so prepared. We have been introspecting for 52 weeks almost to the day. We are exhausted. The opportunity to meditate, to pray, to hope, to renew, is very welcome this year.
As much as I find it excruciatingly difficult I do believe that it’s important to feed a mindset of hope because hopelessness can lead to inaction or unhelpful action and I don’t think that will help us as a people. I’m not always at the place I am at personally but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to try.
We read on second day Rosh Hashana about the Akeida – the binding of Isaac. God gives a covenant in the Akeida, a promise to the Jewish people. And a fresh covenant is given in Jeremiah, Yirmiyahu 31, which we also read on day two.
There is an underlying message that runs through these two stories: hope. Hope is not only a response to pain but is also a guiding force that leads us back to what is most important represented in the Akeida story by the covenant, the ram, the angels, and in Jeremiah in his prophesy.
I want to examine Jeremiah holistically, from a text, historical and spiritual perspective to see what we can mine from it to help us in the Yamim Noraim this year.
With our Torah being an eternal book, through the ages, in any moment of time, we are bound to project onto it layers from how we see the world right now, reading it with a lens coloured by our own life experience.
So, it’s hard to read about our people going into exile from the land of Israel, and then the predicted ingathering of the exiles, this year, the first Rosh Hashanah after 7th October, without the agonising words jumping out at us.
The line, “Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted For her children, who are gone,”is impossible to read without modern subtext of hostages, not least due to the mother’s name.
Jeremiah is said to be the prophet of doom because he predicted the exile – the great spiritual punishment at the hands of the Babylonian army. It was such a provocative thing which Jeremiah was prophesising that the King Zedechiah of Judah imprisoned him.
Keeping in mind, Jeremiah is said to have authored his own book. So if we see him as a doom-scroller, that’s because that’s how he wrote himself to be. We may not trust him as a reliable narrator of his own story!
Because actually, in addition to his doomsday prophecies which came true, so too did he go to town with the prophecies of redemption. In this very chapter. Which also came true. This is a chapter about compassion, forgiveness, a change mindset and hope.
It’s about setting up markers against what’s important to us so that when we adventure, experiment, get it wrong, and we all do, that we know how to find our way home to what is important to us, to our values, to who we want to be.
God as a kind of modern day life coach implores today,
“Erect markers,
Set up signposts;
Keep in mind the highway,
The road that you travelled.
Return, Maiden Israel!
Return to these towns of yours!”
This is not only about returning physically to Zion, and the whole chapter could not be more Zion-ist in orientation. It’s also about returning spiritually to central values each of us hold.
The return from exile which Jeremiah describes is a very real and down to earth one, not spiritual at all – it’s about purchasing deeds to houses, fields and vineyards. “Men shall buy fields for money and inscribe deeds and sign [them] and appoint witnesses in the land of Benjamin and in the environs of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah and in the cities of the mountain and in the cities of the lowland and in the cities of the southland, for I will restore their captivity, says the Lord.” In fact, the Jews were told to prepare for return before they even left by writing house deeds and burying them.
The exile is described specifically as a punishment for not following the ways of our culture, perhaps a touch of taking things for granted, “You gave them this land which You swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. And they came in and took it into possession, but they did not obey You, nor did they walk in Your teachings, all that You commanded them to do they did not do.” The rabbis since then attributed the destruction of the Temple to sinat chinam – baseless hatred between Jewish people.
But from the very outset, before the punishment is enacted, a narrative of hope is provided:
As I mentioned, Jeremiah describes an imaginary situation where the matriarch Rachel refuses to be consoled, because the nation of Israel will be in exile. God responds: “Still your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears . . . There is hope for your future; the children shall return to their border.” This is not just a promise by God but a call to action—to hold onto hope as a means of enduring exile and returning to what matters most.
This punishment of exile of most of the children of Israel (not all) nods to a Jewish conception of time and narrative that works in a spiral not a linear line. We already know the trope because we saw it before when the Israelites left Egypt only to journey for 40 years before the delayed gratification of receiving a homeland. By the way, it’s a homeland their ancestors had already lived in before ending up in Egypt as slaves.
Again, as they now prepare for Babylonian exile, they are reminded that they’ll be back; the theme of hope means that they will need to work hard in exile to return – nothing is given for free (as my great grandfather, an observant rabbi and professional pharmacist used to tell my mum: God helps those who help themselves”). But they will return.
In the meantime, what does the hope look like to Jews in Babylon and to Jews at other moments of exile? It looks like prayers that cite Jerusalem and Zion, Talmudic learnings that lean into the land of Israel. It looks like a seder where we teach our children where our heart is pointing, and it looks like a Rosh Hashana Haftorah spoken by the prophet of doom that nonetheless spends the bulk of his words on hope and future orientation.
Rosh Hashana this year brings in Shabbat. As we move through the spiral nature of a Jewish conception of time on a large generational or narrative scale, we also roll between Kodesh and Chol weekly – the holy and the mundane of shabbat and the weekdays. We even bless the difference between the holy and the mundane each week at Havdalah to ritually mark the ending of one and the start of the other. Maybe looking towards the holy, the Kadosh, with hope for what it will bring us but also noticing the benefits that Chol, the mundane, can bring.
They clasp together, each with a different role. The shabbat is for resting but no rest is necessary without the work done throughout the rest of the week. This weekly rhythm mirrors the larger cycle of exile and redemption—a constant reminder that after every challenge, working week, there is a potential for renewal.
As a reminder of complexity, of our time-spiral – that nothing is black and white – just as we are not fully redeemed and Zionism still has work to do – exile wasn’t ever fully exile. We never left our land, there were some left there during the Babylonian exile. Just as with the destruction of the second Temple 2000 years ago, a tiny few stayed in Yavneh, a seed waiting for the water that was the rest of the nation, to return home, and grow. As a people we were at once in the holy and in the mundane.
Maybe that held an aspect of hope too.
We have spent time in the spiritual and the text, I want to spend some time now in the practical, action orientation.
In that exile of Jeremiah, (Prophet of Hope), our nation grew the tome that is the Babylonian Talmud.
Unlike the Yerushalmi which has many aggadot (tales) but it’s approach to halacha is to cite the conclusion rather than the arguments, the Babylonian Talmud gives us questions and doubts often without a clear ruling, and looks at scripture as well as laws. The Babylonian Talmud cites the Yerushalmi but rarely the other way round. It also has a fuller account of arguments so it’s easier to understand and access. Where there is a disagreement between answers in each Talmud, we go with the Babylonian one.
I am not a historian but I am guessing that the process of learning and editing which brought forth the Babylonian Talmud was part of a drive for hope, first highlighted by Jeremiah, the wrongly named prophet of doom. Even in the heart of exile, the Jews did not succumb to despair. Instead, they planted the seeds of hope through learning, building, and preparing for their return. The Babylonian Talmud is a testament to that hope—transforming exile into a time of growth, some resilience regarding what cannot be changed and also a refusal to accept some conditions that could change.”
In the Book of Jeremiah chapter 29, he instructs the exiles not only how to cry by the river though certainly the aim was to return to the land, but on how to sustain themselves in exile; to be strong and ready to return, “Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, do not decrease. And seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to Hashem in its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper.” They were instructed to maintain their identity on one hand, but not to separate themselves entirely from the outside community on the other – and to actively give to its prosperity.
Hope does not discount the pain we are in, but it enables an imagining that better times are possible. As a people, a more recent iteration of the reminder for hope is our Israeli national anthem HaTikvah, written in 1886 Galicia, and acknowledging the 2000 year old hope.
It is telling that our anthem about the hope to be a free people in our land – li’hiot am chofshi be’artzenu is still sung when we are, arguably, a free people in our land. The anthem is a homage and a reminder to hope, not to victimhood, knowing that in the spiralling cycle of history, we cannot take this for granted and must be reminded that hope for better times – the belief that we can contribute to making better times, internal locus of control is fundamental to our identity and spiritual sustenance.
I was captivated a couple of months ago by the words of Fania Oz-Salsberger speaking to an Australian audience, from her home in Israel, who said that optimism is a lens – a pair of glasses how you might see and interpret your world. But hope is active, a choice, an imperative to do things, just as our ancestors did in exile. This is the hope we must hold onto today as we face our own uncertainties, although, of course, it is increasingly difficult, which is why I am taking these moments to remind us.
Victor Frankel, arguably the grandfather of positive psychology, and himself a Holocaust survivor, said countless things about hope and about mental health arising from identifying meaning to a situation. One of many powerful comments was, “everything can be taken from a man but one thing. The last of human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Jeremiah, Prophet of Doom and Hope, talked about both very physical things – owning vineyards and fields – and very spiritual things, following in the way of our culture.
Some of the customs ingrained in our culture, help to facilitate hope. For example, stopping each Shabbat for a rest, two days of Rosh Hashana meaning if we want to, we can take a day of Rosh Hashana to look behind us and a second day to look forward. Singing Next Year in Jerusalem to finish our seder at Pesach. In modern times, the refrain To Life, Le’Chaim said at simchas.
When I was toying with the word Tikvah, preparing this drasha, I wondered if it shares the root letters as Mikvah, and it does. The word Mikvah comes from the same root at Tikvah – K-V-H. As in, the ritual water immersion. Mikvah comes from the verb Likvot (to gather – a gathering of water). This is a body of water that’s gathered for ritual immersion, use of which converts one state of being to another. But “mikveh” is only used once as a noun in the Tanach, in this way. The other times it is used by Jeremiah – in the context of hope: Lekavot.
Because Jewish time works in cycles and spirals, not in a linear line, as soon as a person emerges from the mikvah clean, they already are moving towards the next cycle of time when they’ll once again be reaching for the mikvah. Tikvah, hope, in Jewish thought isn’t a once used remedy, it’s part of the essence and flow of our culture.
The contrast and swing between the holy and mundane, Kodesh and Chol, joy and despair, reflects the complexities of life and relationships. Its real. And so, we smash glass at our weddings, and sing praise to God in the Kaddish at funerals. We ask a lot from ourselves.
Jeremiah, likewise, prophesied doom but also inspired hope. He continues to inspire us with hope as we read his words on Rosh Hashana. He was isolated and ignored when he warned of the destruction of Jerusalem and was an anxiety-ridden (for good reason) unhappy character. The fact that Jeremiah spoke of hope at all is impressive. But it’s also fundamentally very Jewish. Together, we walk a narrow bridge binding Kodesh and Chol.
So, standing together on this narrow bridge – and it’s really feeling very narrow at the moment for many of us in different ways – how do we reconcile exile and redemption, despair and hope, at this time of national pain? Rabbi Nachman of Breslow taught Kol Ha’Olam Kulo Gesher Tzar Meod, All the world is a very narrow bridge, and if there is one Hebrew song outside our liturgy that many children know, it will be this one. It’s sung across Jewish denominations and its focus is on human attitude.
Why is it so powerful? Because it acknowledges an un-glossed reality: the world can be a dreadful and dangerous place; but simultaneously speaks Jewish aspiration: Veha’ikar lo lifached k’lal – fear will come but it should not define us.
Jeremiah was a man of integrity and action, sharing frustrated harsh words of truth while also teaching his people what to do, guiding, consoling. I think the people sustained themselves in Babylon through two things. Jewish literacy, that’s how they could compose the incredible text that is the Babylonian Talmud as well as other texts still read today.
And the second is a focus on their North star which was Zion, Israel, even as a focal point for those who did not end up returning there and instead founded the communities which became the culturally rich Jewish communities of the area such as Iraq.
We are in hard times right now. We will all be sitting in this room, while I have been talking, contemplating different things we hope for. Some of which may not come good. It could be existential; it could be immediate. Maybe something to do with Israel, climate, family, life, work, health. Along with worry (for good reason), hope is a fundamental part of our liturgy and our culture. Hope is powerful because it drives our actions and choices.
Like the prophet Jeremiah, who prophesied both exile and redemption, we balance despair with hope. We try to transform that hope into action to ensure that, even when we feel in exile—whether that is physical or emotional—we put down signs to never lose sight of the path back to what is important, to the future possibility.
And so I hope that we can learn in the coming year from our ancestors in Babylon – that we treat our country-people well here in Australia in whatever way that means right now, that we continue to learn, and ensure our children learn, about our heritage, about our history, to grow strong identities and traverse the narrow bridge with self-love (pride), self-awareness (humility) and gratitude for our local, national and globally connected Jewish community.
Shana tova.