{"id":70068,"date":"2020-02-11T16:17:05","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T14:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=70068"},"modified":"2023-09-07T16:39:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T13:39:48","slug":"rembrandts-lonely-jeremiah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/rembrandts-lonely-jeremiah\/","title":{"rendered":"Rembrandt\u2019s Lonely Jeremiah\u00a0"},"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":[611,690,451,840],"acf":{"old_id":"70068","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":69033,"related_cahpter":"415","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"A symbol for all who must inhabit the loneliness of Jewish existence\r\n\r\n","content":"

Woe is me, my mother, that you ever bore me\u2014 A man of conflict and strife with all the land! I have not lent, and I have not borrowed; yet everyone curses me (15:10).<\/span><\/p>\n

Accursed be the man\u00a0 Who brought my father the news\u00a0 And said, \u201cA boy Is born to you,\u201d\u00a0 And gave him such joy! (20:15).<\/span><\/p>\n

During moments of national decline, to prophesy one\u2019s own people\u2019s destruction is to invite accusations of betrayal and calls for one\u2019s death (26:11). In the marketplace of ideas, hope sells better than its opposite. Jeremiah\u2019s countrymen despise him for the negativity that he invites.<\/span><\/p>\n

To be a prophet is to be lonely, to be a prophet of destruction even more so. \u201cYou are not to marry and not to have sons and daughters in this place\u201d(16:2). Jeremiah\u2019s role as prophet precludes even the companionship and comfort of family. Jeremiah\u2019s loneliness is perhaps most evocatively captured in Rembrandt\u2019s \u201cJeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem.\u201d Rembrandt portrays the distraught lone figure of the prophet, in a cave, with downcast eyes. Positioning Jeremiah in regal dress while leaning upon the Bible, Rembrandt casts an otherworldly light upon his subject\u2019s overwhelming sorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rembrandt\u2019s portraits (including his self-portraits) depict his subjects (often modeled by Amsterdam\u2019s Jewish population) without vanity and with utmost sincerity. On view at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, \u201cJeremiah\u201d is a relatively small painting measuring 22.8 x 18.1 inches. Rembrandt captures this weathered and beaten man, not as a prophet defiantly declaiming God\u2019s word, but as a lonely figure suffering from that very word\u2019s realization.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am the man who has known affliction under the rod of His wrath\u201d (Lamentation 3:1).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah, while creating interpersonal distance in the prophetic exhortations towards his sinful brothers and sisters, embodies the everyman who must witness ultimate tragedy. In Rembrandt\u2019s handling, Jeremiah internalizes the suffering of his people, alone without anything but the Torah to lean on. Rembrandt conveys something of the loneliness of the exilic experience in this portrayal: not simply the human suffering in the painting\u2019s background, but the soul-scorching contemplation of the why. Jeremiah is alone, only one man; and at the very same time a symbol for all the Jews who must inhabit the loneliness of Jewish existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

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