{"id":70597,"date":"2020-02-23T14:32:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T12:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=70597"},"modified":"2023-10-16T16:51:44","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T13:51:44","slug":"jeremiah-v-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jeremiah-v-antonio\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremiah v. Antonio"},"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":[301,373,625,506],"acf":{"old_id":"70597","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64758,"related_cahpter":"423","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"The Merchant of Venice, the prophet of Jerusalem\r\n\r\n","content":"

In Shakespeare\u2019s <\/span>The Merchant of Venice<\/span><\/em>, Antonio is a generous nobleman of Venice.\u00a0 However, in contrast to his usual conduct, Antonio exhibits extremely negative behavior toward the Jewish Shylock. At one point, Antonio says that Shylock’s ability to quote the Bible does not impress him, since people quote the Bible selectively for their own agendas: \u201cMark you this, Bassanio, the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose” (Act 1, Scene 3).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It would be easy to dismiss this claim and consider it as simply another anti-Semitic remark, except that in today\u2019s chapter, Jeremiah also claims that people misquote God\u2019s word to advance their own interests. A closer examination, though, shows that the statements of Antonio and Jeremiah are not identical. Antonio implies that the Bible has no real message; it is merely a tool in the hands of the person quoting it. Jeremiah doesn\u2019t doubt that the Bible contains the true and eternal message of God, though he agrees that it is possible to pervert its message by misquoting it.<\/span><\/p>\n

To understand Jeremiah\u2019s statement, we must examine the politics of the time. Jeremiah warned the people that if they did not improve their conduct, the enemies of Israel would attack and destroy Jerusalem. The false prophets of his time wished to prove that Jeremiah was incorrect. One of their methods was to quote the prophecies of Hosea, Isaiah, and Nahum which described Israel\u2019s victory, and not their defeat, which Jeremiah warned could happen.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The word <\/span>masa<\/span><\/em> (\u201cburden\u201d) is found in many of these prophecies that describe the downfall of the enemies of Israel. The <\/span>masa<\/span><\/em> was a known genre among the prophets to convey to the people that they should not fear being attacked by the other nations. The false prophets quoted these <\/span>masa<\/span><\/em> prophecies to persuade the Jerusalemites that there was no need to worry about Jeremiah’s warning of the city\u2019s destruction, or to heed his call to change their ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeremiah shows that even though the false prophets are quoting the earlier <\/span>masa<\/span><\/em> prophecies, their message is not authentic. Since the false prophets have been taking these <\/span>masa<\/span><\/em> prophecies out of context, they are not giving God\u2019s message. He orders these prophets to refrain from mentioning the <\/span>masa<\/span><\/em> prophecies since they are using them for their own agendas, rather than trying to understand their true message: “But do not mention ‘the <\/span>Masa<\/span><\/em> of the LORD’ any more. Does a man regard his own word as a ‘<\/span>Masa<\/span><\/em>‘ <\/span><\/i>that you pervert the words of the living God, the LORD of Hosts, our God?\u201d (v. 36).<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Jeremiah and Antonio understood that an individual could take advantage of the Bible’s richness to twist its message. According to Jeremiah, the solution to this matter is to<\/span> increase the study of the Bible, spending time to learn it thoroughly, in order to understand its true message.\u00a0 With pride, 929 follows the path of Jeremiah, passionately studying “the words of the living God, the LORD of Hosts”.<\/span><\/p>\n

(This dvar torah was inspired by a lesson that I heard from Rav Yoel Ben Nun).<\/span><\/p>\n

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