Jeremiah: A Voice of Hope

Jeremiah is often known for his searing prophecies, yet in this week's Haftorah it would seem that that is far from the case. To the best of my knowledge, no other prophet has an English word named after him - namely, the "Jeremiad," a long, and mournful complaint, but his words this week ring a hopeful peal of belief, and return. 

Jeremiah, in jail, is visited by his cousin, who seeks to sell him a plot of land. It is not a good time to get into real estate. Jerusalem is besieged, battering rams at the ready, ramps constructed for the impending onslaught. King Zedekiah, who jailed Jeremiah, is beside himself, confused, not knowing what to do; Jeremiah has defied him and defamed him, prophecying about his exile and gruesome death, and the lost thought on anyone's mind is the purchase of parcels of land, however cheap. If anything, people would be liquidating assets, not adding to their real estate portfolio. And so, when Hanamel comes to ask Jeremiah to redeem a parcel of land in their shared family inheritance, the no-brainer answer would be "No!" 

Hashem though commands Jeremiah to purchase the land, sharing a prophetic vision that has resounded for millenia, namely hope and the belief in returning to one's ancestral homeland. In the midst of Jeremiah's incarceration, witnesses were brought, and the prophet's dutiful scribe penned the most powerful of messages, a land contract that was signed and sealed, put in an earthenware vessel, protected and hidden, so that when 70 years later the Jews would return from the Babylonian exile, there would be a powerful, rhetorical symbol of our nation's return to its ancestral roots. 

No message could have been more powerful at the time, and yet, the complexity of the moment was very palpable, something Jeremiah himself gives voice to. Just three chapters prior (Jeremiah 29), the prophet sends word to the Jews in exile: 

"Thus said Hashem Almighty, the God of Israel, unto all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem unto Babylon: Build homes, and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; 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; and thrive there and multiply."

Now, in Chapter 32, Jeremiah, after taking part in the highly symbolic land purchase from Hanamel, turns to Hashem and asks, "How can you ask me to go through the motions when things truly seem so dire?" In Jeremiah's own words: "Yet, You have said to me Hashem: Buy the field for money, and call witnesses; whereas the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans." 

This need, thus, to grasp two realities simultaneously, is something that's even hard for Jeremiah, at which point Hashem caps off his prophetic vision to Jeremiah by reaffirming the promise:

"Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill-country, and in the cities of the Lowland, and in the cities of the South; for I will cause their captivity to return, avers Hashem."

The language here is so similar to that of Chapter 29, essentially honing this difficulty. Israel is the bastion of faith, the future, but to get there, sometimes you need to traverse rugged lands, exile, and whilst there, don't forsake your own wellbeing. Build homes, marry, plant vineyards, but know that it is only a steppingstone till your ultimate return!