Fear of a prophet
The opening chapter of the book of Jeremiah — read as the Haftorah portion in synagogues across the world on the Shabbat of or immediately following the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz, depicts the moving first encounter between the prophet Jeremiah and G‑d.
"And the word of G‑d was upon me (Jeremiah), saying: 'When I had not yet formed you in the belly, I already recognized you; and when you had not yet come forth from the womb, I sanctified you; a prophet to the nations I have made you.'
"And I said, 'Aha! My Lord, G‑d, behold! - I know not how to speak, for I am but a lad.'
"G‑d said to me, 'Do not say 'I am but a lad,' rather to wherever I send you shall you go, and whatever I command you shall you speak. Fear not before them, for I am with you… See I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to raze; to build and to plant." (Jer. 1:1-2:3)
...G‑d dispatches Jeremiah on a grueling mission...
At this point G‑d dispatches Jeremiah on a grueling mission — to transform a depraved Jewish nation to fulfill their calling as holy people; to make Israel aware of the dire consequences that would befall them if they would not put an end to the immorality that eroded their communities in the Land of Israel. "From the North shall the evil loose itself upon the inhabitants of the Land," Jeremiah is instructed to relate to his people.
"You shall gird your loins and arise and speak to them all that I shall command you," G‑d says to Jeremiah. "Do not tremble before them."
Sadly, Jeremiah's pleas and warnings to his people went unheeded. Jeremiah was even deemed by many as a fanatical madman, as he wandered the streets of Jerusalem and attempted to ignite the conscience of his people. Jeremiah witnessed first hand — in the year 586 B.C.E. — the destruction of Jerusalem and the first temple, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Jews and the exiling of his nation, documented in the book of Lamentations which he also authored. This was the first time in their history during which the Jewish people lost their independence and were expelled from their Land.
Timeless Relevance
We have discussed numerous times that every episode recorded in the Bible contains timeless relevance. The Bible is not merely a book of history, but a Divine blueprint for living, a road map for our tumultuous voyage of life.
...what...guidance can we glean from the story of G‑d's reassurance to a frightened Jeremiah...?
Therefore we must ask ourselves, what type of inspiration or guidance can we glean from the story of G‑d's reassurance to a frightened Jeremiah who sees himself as incapable of assuming the role of the prophet?
Also, what is the meaning behind G‑d's marvelous expression to Jeremiah, "When I had not yet formed you in the belly, I already recognized you; and when you had not yet come forth from the womb, I sanctified you"?
Anguish of a soul
Jeremiah - in Hebrew 'Yermeyahoo' - is derived from a Hebrew word, Mar, denoting anguish.1 In this sense, Jeremiah is not only a frustrated and troubled prophet who lived through one of the most painful moments in Jewish history, experiencing the destruction of the first temple;2 Jeremiah represents a timeless quality inherent in each of us — our own inner agony over the sorrows of life.
Have you ever felt a void in your heart, a sense of inner emptiness and boredom? Have you ever attempted to drown that emotional vacuum by engaging in gratifying pursuits — shopping, vacation, going to the movies, eating, drinking, intimacy, reading a good book, drugs, poker — just to discover that the void has not been filled, maybe it even increased?
That void is the voice of your soul yearning for fulfillment. The soul, a breath of G‑d, a spark of infinity, descends from the intimate space of G‑d to reside, at times for as long as a century, in a physical body and a mundane world, where its priorities and yearnings are ignored or even scorned. For the soul, a relationship with G‑d constitutes her very identity, while in the world she comes to live in, the mere mention of G‑d to public school children, "One nation under G‑d," is challenged by the USA Government.
Your soul needs G‑d, it craves G‑d; it is a part of G‑d. When your soul is connected to G‑d it is serene, calm and fulfilled, like an infant in its mother's bosom.
In that sense, each of us is a small Jeremiah, a soul anguished and pained by its exile in an environment where its yearnings go unnoticed.3
The Messenger
What is the purpose of the soul embarking on a journey that will inevitably cause it much grief?
...you were dispatched to the earth...to introduce G‑dliness and holiness...to the material world around you.
To answer this question, G‑d begins His messages to Jeremiah, and every one of our inner souls, as it is being dispatched on its challenging mission, with the following words: "I have made you a prophet to the nations ." You have not been sent to earth in order to maintain your spiritual integrity; that you could have accomplished far better in heaven. Rather, you were dispatched to the earth to serve as a messenger, a prophet, to introduce G‑dliness and holiness to your physical, brute body and to the material world around you. You are being sent into the earthly domain in order to link heaven with earth.4
Does the frustration and anguish you will experience as a result of the ongoing conflict in your life between your ego-oriented space and your G‑d oriented space frighten you, my precious soul? No need. That's the way it was meant to be. You were chosen to create a spiritual revolution within your own body and within your own psyche — and revolutions are never easy.
An Anxious soul
Yet the soul is anxious. Like a young emissary dispatched to influence a foreign, hostile country, the soul is intimidated by the physical body’s incessant claims that it's the only true reality.
It's a familiar feeling to many of us: We feel the void; we realize that our souls need spirituality and G‑dliness like the body needs nutrition. Yet our materialistic urges are so powerful that they cast a shadow on the soul's light, challenging its authenticity each day.
As a result, the soul pulls back and begins to questions its own validity: "Maybe my body and the world around me has it right after all. Perhaps we could just be content satisfying our physical cravings and don't need a continuous strenuous relationship with an invisible reality we call G‑d? Perhaps spirituality is ultimately an illusion, a product of our mortal fear and insecurity? Maybe it is a delusion in order to give us some hope and meaning, "opiate for the masses"?
Thus G‑d turns to each and every soul with a message of personal empowerment: "When I had not yet formed you in the belly, I already recognized you."
Let not your spiritual identity shrink in insecurity in the face of adversity, G‑d speaks to the soul. Your spirituality, your Divine essence, is the most innate part of your existence. Before you were even formed in the belly, "I recognized you." Your relationship with G‑d constitutes the deepest core of your personal identity; it precedes your physical consciousness and your body.
G‑d continues to boost the little Jeremiah in each of us — "And when you had not yet come forth from the womb, I sanctified you:"
The Talmud describes the experience of the embryo while in the womb, "A lamp is lit above the child's head, by which it can see from one end of the world to the other end; there are no days during which a person experiences more bliss than those days in his mother's womb. They [G‑d and the angels] teach the unborn child the entire Torah." (Niddah 30b)
While you were still in your mother's womb, you were sanctified and granted all of the resources to confront the world and transform it into a divine abode, a world of goodness, love and light.5
Sure, some will challenge the soul’s profound awareness of G‑d, claiming – often with religious fervor — that all religion is a delusion; but no scientific truth can pose any threat to religion rightly conceived as a search for moral order and spiritual meaning. Science can tell us how; it can’t teach us why. The soul was implanted within us to ask — and answer — the question of "why."
I'm not a speaker.
Yet the soul is still bashful.
"And I said, 'Aha! My Lord, G‑d, behold! - I know not how to speak, for I am but a lad.'"
Perhaps, laments the soul to G‑d, I can retain my own integrity even while residing in a hostile environment. But how can you expect of me to change my body and to transform the world? I can preserve my power but I can by no means communicate the message to my earthly counterpart. Compared with the power of the physical and the sensual, I am but a lad.
"G‑d said to me, 'Do not say 'I am but a lad,' rather to wherever I send you shall you go, and whatever I command you shall you speak. Fear not before them, for I am with you. See I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to raze; to build and to plant."
Your soul must remember how powerful it is.
Your soul must remember how powerful it is. Sure, at the onset it seems that the soul is fragile relative to the forces that oppose its soft, still voice. But if the soul only chooses to flex its muscles, it will discover its extraordinary strength. Whenever you are engaged in a battle with your ugly nature, you can turn to G‑d and say, "Hey, help me with this punch." You will be surprised with the results.6
Transcending Our Collective Fear
Just as this is true regarding every individual soul, it is also true concerning our people as a whole.
We are living in a time when many of us are intimidated by "world opinion" and are afraid to stand up completely and unambiguously to terror. We are uncomfortable being Jews who are proud of their faith and heritage.
"We may know the truth that Israel belongs to us," many Jews cry. "But the world will never accept it."
We underestimate our spiritual power as well as the inner desire of the non-Jewish world to see the Jewish people as a beacon of moral and divine truth.
We must affirm to ourselves the timeless words of G‑d to Jeremiah: "Do not say 'I am but a lad,' rather to wherever I send you shall you go, and whatever I command you shall you speak. Fear not before them, for I am with you…See I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to raze; to build and to plant."
[Reprinted from //Algemeiner.com. (Part of it was published 20 years later in Likkutei Sichot vol. 18 pp. 342-350)
Originally based on an address by the Lubavitvcher Rebbe, Shabbat Pinchas - Tamuz 17, 5721 (July 1, 1961)]
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