{"id":69055,"date":"2020-01-25T09:36:11","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T07:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69055"},"modified":"2023-08-20T13:59:12","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T10:59:12","slug":"jewish-immortality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jewish-immortality\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Immortality"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In his 1895 <\/span>Harper\u2019s <\/span><\/i>essay, \u201cConcerning the Jews,\u201d Mark Twain poetically concludes with a question:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?<\/span><\/p>\n

The events of the 125 years since the essay\u2019s publication only underscore Twain\u2019s wonderment.<\/span><\/p>\n

If it can be found anywhere, the secret to Jewish immortality can be discovered in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah introduces into the Jewish story a means by which destruction might be endured and exile weathered. Whereas a common land-based identity grounds almost all national stories, Jeremiah innovates a method by which national identity can survive upon foreign soil. The divine covenant with the Jewish people, argues Jeremiah, does not require the Temple in Jerusalem or a commonwealth in the land of Israel. Political reversals must be understood as reflections of divine justice and not as proofs against God\u2019s power to deliver God\u2019s people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah, often labelled as a prophet of doom, is ultimately a prophet of survival. In challenging the false prophets who predicted Jewish victory and celebrated the Temple\u2019s permanence, Jeremiah lowers expectations, thereby tempering the despair that accompanied the full realization of the Temple\u2019s finitude. In prophesying and explaining the First Commonwealth\u2019s end, Jeremiah provides the survivors with a narrative through which they might weather the cataclysm. It is with this goal that God consecrates Jeremiah, \u201cSee, I appoint you this day over nations and kingdoms: to uproot and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant<\/span>.<\/b>\u201d (1:10)<\/span><\/p>\n

Whereas the theology of his day saddled a deity\u2019s truth to the success of the people who worshiped it, Jeremiah builds national resilience by arguing that the universal God might use God\u2019s people as an embodiment of a covenant (5:19). In a commonwealth\u2019s destruction, proof to God\u2019s commitment to a people might be recognized and not its opposite. In championing that durable covenant, Jeremiah preserves the agency of the Jews as they become a subject people, establishing a distinct story from those who would wield power over them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In accepting responsibility for their own destruction and not accepting a state of victimhood, those people might repent and witness a rebuilding of their state.<\/span><\/p>\n

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