JEREMIAH 31:1-19 (or 31:2-20)
This is the haftorah on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. If you grew up Reform, you didn’t celebrate the second day of Rosh Hashanah at all. Attendance in liberal congregations that do celebrate a second day is generally sharply lower.
The plain reading of the text suggests a message of hope for the redemption of Israel. “I will continue my grace to you, I will build you firmly again (31:3-4). “I will bring them in from the northland, gather them from the ends of the earth…I will lead them to streams of water” (31:8-9). “I will turn their mourning to joy. I will comfort them and cheer them in their grief.” (31:13). In a stressful time here in the United States, in Israel, in the world, all I can say is would that it were so.
I want to raise three themes in this short reading.
What does the good life looks like?
Does the wilderness underpin the settled good life?
How might redemption work, if it is even possible.
Here’s what the good life looks like. “You shall take up your timbrels and go forth to the rhythm of the dancers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria (31:4-5). “They shall come and shout on the Heights of Zion. Radiant over the bounty of YHVH, over new grain and wine and oil, and over sheep and cattle. They shall fare like a watered garden…then shall maidens dance gaily.” (31:12-13) “Your children shall return to their country.” (31:17). There’s nothing here about following any particular laws, nor much in the way of religious practices and no mention of sacrifices, not much about social justice. It is largely about enjoying the riches of the land. And it isn’t as if Jeremiah is a farmer—he’s from a priestly family and he spends his time prophesying.
What I invite you to consider is how you would define the good life. Does your view of the good life include anything about planting vineyards, harvesting and processing grain or olives, getting the benefit of domesticated livestock? Here these things are the focus.
This vision of the good life of grain and wine and oil is prefaced by the (mythical) founding of the nation in the exodus from Egypt. “The people escaped from the sword, found favor in the wilderness…YHVH revealed himself of old…Again you shall take up your timbrels and go forth to the rhythm of the dancers. (a reference to Miriam and the women dancing after the exodus). (31:2-4) If the good life is a vision of a prosperous and secure settled state, what underlies it, this Haftorah teaches us, is our wilderness experience. The wilderness, not the settled agricultural society is where the divine revealed himself, where we first learned to dance. I think sometimes we forget this core lesson of Jewish myth, that the wilderness is the foundation, even if the settled world is where we live day to day.
Do you believe that the wilderness underpins settled life? What is your experience, if any, of revelation or ecstatic joy in the wilderness?
How might redemption work, if it is even possible? The text, in very typical prophetic ideology, has the divine as the one who redeems us. “I will build you firmly again” (31:4). “He who scattered Israel will gather them.” (31:10) “YHVH will redeem Jacob” (31:11) “I will turn their mourning into joy: (31:13). The reading concludes that once Ephraim has repented of his sins “I will receive him back in love.” (31:20) Do you really believe the plain meaning of the text, that the divine will redeem us, as long as we repent? If you do, your faith is really different than mine or you are just ignoring the straightforward reading of the text. I think it is perfectly plausible to repent, get pretty clean in your relationships and have the world be in a miserable situation. I just don’t believe that our simple repentance will save us. This begs the following questions:
Is redemption even a theoretical possibility?
Does this portrayal of the role of humans and divine in the dance of redemption speak to you or how do you think of that relationship?
I think that maybe, just maybe, some serious deep work where we personally come into some kind of right alignment with all of creation, and this movement becomes widespread—maybe that will redeem us. But I fear instead that we are headed down a bad path to the eventual destruction of most of our species. I tend to believe we’ll come up with some technological fixes that will stave it off for a while, and then once the system collapses, there will be pockets of surviving humans who will still need to figure out how to live in right relationship.
What’s your view of whether redemption is even a theoretical possibility? If you believe it is, how would redemption come about?
