{"id":69151,"date":"2020-01-26T13:14:49","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T11:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=69151"},"modified":"2023-08-23T17:42:18","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T14:42:18","slug":"apocalyptic-visions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/apocalyptic-visions\/","title":{"rendered":"Apocalyptic Visions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jeremiah 4 is mired in pain, stuck in emotional quicksand, like a bad relationship, or a bad breakup.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of me reads with awe, seeing this chapter as a beautifully unrestrained poem on the agony and ecstasy of the human-Divine relationship. The other part of me feels like I\u2019m listening to a twenty-two year old going through their first real breakup \u2013 listening with that strange mix of empathy for their suffering, and impatience with the high drama of it all.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this is not about human-human relationships; instead, it\u2019s about the tribal-Divine relationship. Literary repetition echoes throughout this chapter as if to illustrate the stuckness of the speaker (God\u2019s? Jeremiah\u2019s?).<\/span><\/p>\n

Spiritual estrangement is painful on both sides, and here we have an obsessive, unsolvable, so-bad-it\u2019s-good conflict.\u00a0 If a friend were speaking like this about their relationship, going over the same territory again and again in small circles, I would gently suggest that they might benefit from some therapy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, time itself moves in circles here; Jeremiah speaks apocalyptic visions of creation itself reversed, restored to the original pre-creation wild and waste of Genesis, “<\/span>tohu va\u2019vohu<\/span><\/em>” (\u201cwithout form and void\u201d). Farmland turned back to desert, people non-existent. Even the birds flee, and for this final vision of loss, Jeremiah uses the same word used when Cain is banished: \u201c<\/span>nad<\/span><\/em>,\u201d to wander, restlessly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Birds banished like Cain! The poet in me adores and admires this obsessive, no-holds-barred take on what it means to be in relationship with God \u2013 and more deeply, how it feels to be alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the part of me who tries to live with equanimity \u2013 call her the middle-aged person who\u2019s learned to pace herself, or the mother trying to yell at her kids less, or the seeker looking for a right and true way to live \u2013 that part of me appreciates the language and imagery and passion while taking a big step backwards from the pattern of relationship here.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for me not to read this chapter as an example of unhealthy communication. Conflict and hurt feelings leading to threats, retaliations and dire predictions. More speaking than listening, more screaming than breathing, and an overall cascading one-directional self-justification.<\/span><\/p>\n

Righteous anger in the face of injustice is important, but this feels to me like the sort of anger which has crossed over into enjoying its own righteousness, rather than addressing the problem at hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Simply put, I think Jeremiah, God, and the Jewish people – just like all of us humans in relationship – could benefit from some therapy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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