{"id":69071,"date":"2020-01-25T11:40:51","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T09:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69071"},"modified":"2023-08-20T14:08:22","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T11:08:22","slug":"before-i-created-you-in-the-womb-i-selected-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/before-i-created-you-in-the-womb-i-selected-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Before I Created You In The Womb, I Selected You"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[366,840,506],"acf":{"old_id":"69071","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34243,"related_cahpter":"401","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Nature or Nurture? Nature AND Nurture\r\n","content":"

The contents of the Book of Jeremiah are, overall, so gloomy that they gave birth to the noun \u201cjeremiad,\u201d defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, as: \u201cA lamentation; a doleful complaint; a complaining tirade; a lugubrious effusion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This \u201clugubrious\u201d description is entirely consistent with the rabbinic view of the book. In their discussion of the sequence of the books of Tanakh and attributions of their authorship, the Sages delineated a canon different in its arrangement from our own. While we have Isaiah immediately following Kings, and then Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which is their proper chronological order, the Talmud placed Jeremiah first followed by Ezekiel, with Isaiah last, explaining:<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah preceded Jeremiah and Ezekiel; shouldn\u2019t it go first? [Rather,] Kings ends with catastrophe and Jeremiah is all catastrophe. Ezekiel starts with catastrophe and ends with consolation, and Isaiah is all consolation. (Baba Batra 14 b)<\/span><\/p>\n

In contrast to Isaiah, whose inauguration as a prophet first appears in chapter six of his book, Jeremiah\u2019s initiation is narrated right in the opening chapter. In order to overcome his reservations -he attributed to his youth (6)\u2014God told him that he was destined to be a prophet from birth. \u201cBefore I created you in the womb, I selected you; before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations\u201d (5). Shadal* explained:<\/span><\/p>\n

God foresaw that Jeremiah would decline his mission, so He informed him that he was prepared for it prenatally. God could not have done the same with Moses since he was not prepared for [prophecy] naturally, as he said, \u201cI am not a man of words\u201d (Exodus 4:10). Furthermore, [Moses] was not a youth but an old man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shadal acknowledged his debt here to Radak, and his paraphrase of Maimonides:<\/span><\/p>\n

The great sage Moses ben Maimon wrote [in the Guide for the Perplexed] that this applies to every prophet. None can succeed without a natural predisposition towards prophecy along with practice\u2026 This does not apply to prophecy alone; any knowledge or disposition that a person excels in must have some preparation in his natural composition that gets better as he practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, in the perennial debate over nature vs. nurture, Maimonides\u2014and, in his wake, a slew of rationalists from Radak through Shadal\u2014offered a neat compromise. Every successful trait or characteristic can be attributed to a combination of a natural predisposition and acquired knowledge and practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also worth noting is that our translation departs from the literal meaning of the last phrase, rendering it as \u201ca prophet concerning the nations\u201d (<\/span>navi la-goyim<\/span><\/em>) rather than the more literal \u201ca prophet to the nations.\u201d Shadal understood it similarly, writing: “Not that he was to go and address the nations, but that in speaking to Israel he would mention what had transpired to some of the nations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here we have clear evidence of Shadal\u2019s consistency with his own third principle of exegesis (detailed in our introduction) that \u201cthe literal sense is frequently misleading and erroneous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

*For an explanation of our objectives in studying Shadal\u2019s commentary, see the\u00a0 introduction on this page.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":69072,"id":69072,"title":"jer1-nature nurture","filename":"jer1-nature-nurture.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/before-i-created-you-in-the-womb-i-selected-you\/jer1-nature-nurture\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"jer1-nature-nurture","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":69071,"date":"2020-01-25 09:40:37","modified":"2020-01-25 09:40:49","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1920,"height":1920,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture-150x150.png","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture-300x300.png","medium-width":300,"medium-height":300,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture-768x768.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":768,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture-1024x1024.png","large-width":1024,"large-height":1024,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1536,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture.png","2048x2048-width":1920,"2048x2048-height":1920,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture-1200x1200.png","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":1200,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/jer1-nature-nurture-420x420.png","home_baner-width":420,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"Before I Created You In The Womb, I Selected You","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Nature or Nurture? 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