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1. Yirmiyahu and the False Prophets

   Rabbi David Sabato

   Clashes between true and false prophets take place in many places in the Bible. But for no other prophet does this type of confrontation play such a central role in his world as it does for Yirmiyahu.

   Yirmiyahu highlights four distinctions between the true prophet and the false prophet.

   Personality of the Prophet:

   One cannot separate the prophet's personality from his prophecy. Prophecy is not a profession external to the prophet's person; rather, it must fill his entire world. Hence, a prophet who sins in his personal life cannot be a true prophet in his public life.

   Purpose of the Prophecy:

   The role of the true prophet, from the days of Avraham, is to speak out against the faults of society and try to fix them, thus trying to prevent the moral deterioration so that it not be destroyed like Sedom. The false prophets, on the other hand, work in the opposite manner: They turn Jerusalem into Sedom by way of their false prophecies of reassurance, thus betraying their role as prophets.

   Wording of the Prophecy:

   The authenticity of a prophecy is reflected in the unique style of the prophet who delivers it. He receives the word of God and then formulates it in his own words and his own personal style. The uniform style of the false testifies to its inauthenticity and the absence of inner connection to the prophet himself.

   Experience and Clarity of the Prophecy:

   The realm of dreams is by its very nature a place where the boundary between reality and imagination becomes blurred; a person is liable to think that he received a prophecy from above, when in fact he merely had a dream and imagined fantasies in his mind. The experience of prophecy, on the other hand, is unequivocal; a prophet who experiences the intensity of prophecy – "like a burning fire shut up in my bones" cannot be mistaken about it. The inner distinction between imagination and prophecy is sharp and clear, and anyone can distinguish between the two in himself.

2. The Good Figs and the Bad Figs

   Rabbi David Sabato

   The prevalent mood among those who remained in the Land of Israel after the exile of Yehoyakhin was that their brothers had been exiled from the land and they viewed themselves as heirs to the land. Yirmiyahu struggled against this perception, arguing that it is precisely the exiles, who are likened here to good figs, who will return to the land and inherit it, while those who remained in the land, who are likened to bad figs, will become diminished in numbers and disappear.

   There are several lines of similarity between the vision concerning the figs in Yirmiyahu's prophecy and the dreams of Pharaoh that were interpreted by Yosef. Yosef interprets Pharaoh's dream and reveals to him that a great calamity is about to fall upon Egypt. However, Yosef, who was sold as a slave to Egypt, succeeds in saving his family in the years of famine and sustaining them in the exile of Egypt. 

   In the same way, Yirmiyahu, the prophet of destruction and exile, stands before a great calamity that is threatening to befall the people. In this vision, Yirmiyahu reveals that it is precisely in the depths of the calamity that we find a bright spot in the form of the good figs, the exile of Yehoyakhin, who were "picked" at an earlier stage, before they became ruined, in order to constitute a base for the renewal of the people after the destruction and after the exile in Babylon.

3. "Shall He Return to her Again?" - A Collection of Prophecies of Repentance

   Rabbi David Sabato

   In chapter 3, Yirmiyahu presents a prophecy that portrays the difficulty inherent in the repentance of the Jewish People through a parable. Israel is compared to a woman who has left her husband – God - for other men - idols. Such a woman is halakhically forbidden to return to her first husband and that sin pollutes and defiles the Land of Israel. Can Israel possibly return to God?

4. He Speaks in Allegories

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   Throughout the chapters dating to the years prior to the destruction there is a motif of words and terms that relate to women. This image is fully realized with the death of the prophet’s wife, symbolizing the final destruction of the city.

   The detailed description of the unfaithfulness of this woman – Jerusalem – emphasizes the chasm between her humble beginnings, with no lineage and no identity, and the abundance God bestowed upon her and His favors done for her that ultimately end in her betrayal. God’s response is a detailed description of total annihilation.

   Yehezkel compares the deeds of the city of Jerusalem to those of Shomron and Sodom. The sin of Sodom, as depicted here, is that despite the economic stability and strength of its inhabitants, they did not support the poor and needy. Yehezkel attributes only social sins to Sodom in order to emphasize the more grievous sins of Jerusalem, which are described as unfaithfulness.

   Despite the people’s actions in the present, the covenant that God remembers and maintains even in the future is a covenant of youth, and even at the time of their sin, this historical covenant will stand. This is also why the nation is rebuked just as it is being forgiven.

5. The Soul that Sins – It Shall Die

   Dr. Tova Ganzel

   The people of Yehezkel’s generation claimed that since the destruction was inevitable, their individual actions no longer had any importance and it made no difference whether they remained loyal to God’s commandments or not. Others believed that “The way of the Lord is unfair”.  Therefore Yehezkel repeats and emphasizes the responsibility of every individual for his actions and the life-and-death consequences that follow. Yehezkel concludes by stating that the people’s claim – that the son dies because of the sins of the father – is simply incorrect.

   The prophet also declares that the gates of repentance remain open to the individual. These verses are quite unusual given that nowhere in the book is there any call for the people to mend their ways so that God will not destroy His Temple. Although the prophet here calls upon the people to repent, he offers no promise that this will prevent the destruction; he only speaks of deliverance from the death for the sinners when the destruction comes.

   The sins brought about the imminent destruction of the city according to Yehezkel are idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed. Yehezkel does not seem to attribute the destruction of the First Temple to the social transgressions of the nation as a whole – in neither the prophecies before nor after the Destruction.

    

   In Chapter 22 as the Destruction of Jerusalem draws nearer the prophet appears to place more of an emphasis on the personal responsibility that the leaders of the people bear for their actions, along with the dire consequences of their corrupt leadership for the nation as a whole. This chapter attributes sins both social and religious in nature to the office-bearers in leadership positions. Thus, the fate of the city is sealed because of idolatry, sexual immorality, bloodshed, and – finally – the deeds of the leadership.

6. A Repentance Conundrum

   HaTanakh.com Staff

7. Tanakh and Literature of the Ancient Near East

   Part 2 - The Torah and Legal Systems of the Ancient Near East (continued)

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   On this basis of some of the major features that distinguish the law of the Torah from the laws of the Ancient Near East we may conclude that the Torah does indeed display awareness of the existence of other ancient codes of law, and perhaps even specific laws. However, even in instances where there is a clear connection between the two systems, the Torah is not a replica of existing laws. On the contrary, the Torah adopts those laws that conform with the dictates of morality and uprightness, while altering radically some of the basic principles upon which those laws are based and their foundation in limited human perceptions of justice. From the Divine point of view of the Torah, there is an emphasis on the value of life, on individual responsibility, etc., in contrast to the principles arising from the other systems of laws. The Torah represents, even in the social sphere, a wondrous legal structure based on social justice, supporting and illustrating Moshe's declaration, "What  nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all this Torah, which I set before you today?"