Two Jews in Moscow

Two Jews were standing and talking on a Moscow street. One of them did not have official papers permitting him to be in Moscow at the time. When a police officer approached them to verify their documents, the Jew with the documents told his friend not to worry and then proceeded to run from the officer.

The officer began to chase him. When he finally caught up, the officer asked him to show his documents, which he did. The officer asked him, "Why did you run away from me when you have the right documents?"

"My doctor told me to run one mile each day," responded the Jew.

"But why didn't you stop when you saw me running after you," asked the officer.

"I thought your doctor told you the same," said the Jew.

Fear of a prophet

The opening chapter of the book of Jeremiah -- read this Sabbath in Synagogues across the world (1) -- depicts the moving first encounter between the prophet Jeremiah and G-d.

"And the word of G-d was upon me (Jeremiah), saying: 'When I had not yet formed you in the belly, I already recognized you; and when you had not yet come forth from the womb, I sanctified you; a prophet to the nations I have made you.'

"And I said, 'Aha! My Lord, G-d, behold! - I know not how to speak, for I am but a lad.'

"G-d said to me, 'Do not say 'I am but a lad,' rather to wherever I send you shall you go, and whatever I command you shall you speak. Fear not before them, for I am with you… See I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to raze; to build and to plant."

At this point G-d dispatches Jeremiah on a grueling mission -- to transform a depraved Jewish nation to fulfill their calling as holy people; to make Israel aware of the dire consequences that would befall them if they would not put en end to the immorality that eroded their communities in the Land of Israel. "From the North shall the evil loose itself upon the inhabitants of the Land (2)," Jeremiah is instructed to relate to his people.

"You shall gird your loins and arise and speak to them all that I shall command you," G-d says to Jeremiah. "Do not tremble before them (3)."

Sadly, Jeremiah's pleas and warnings to his people went unheeded. Jeremiah was even deemed by many as a fanatical madman, as he wandered the streets of Jerusalem and attempted to ignite the conscience of his people. Jeremiah witnessed first hand -- in the year 586 B.C.E. -- the destruction of Jerusalem and the first temple, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Jews and the exiling of his nation, documented by the prophet in the book of Lamentations. This was the first time in their history during which the Jewish people lost their independence and were expelled from their Land.

Timeless Relevance

We have discussed numerous times that every episode recorded in the Bible contains timeless relevance. The Bible is not merely a book of history, but a Divine blueprint for living, a road map for our tumultuous voyage of life.

Therefore we must ask ourselves, what type of inspiration or guidance can we glean from the story of G-d's reassurance to a frightened Jeremiah who sees himself as incapable of assuming the role of the prophet?

Also, what is the meaning behind G-d's marvelous expression to Jeremiah, "When I had not yet formed you in the belly, I already recognized you; and when you had not yet come forth from the womb, I sanctified you"?

Anguish of a soul

Jeremiah - in Hebrew Yermeyahoo - is derived from a Hebrew word, Mar, denoting anguish (4). In this sense, Jeremiah is not only a frustrated and troubled prophet who lived through one of the most painful moments in Jewish history, experiencing the destruction of the first temple (5); Jeremiah represents a timeless quality inherent in each of us -- our own inner agony over the sorrows of life.

Have you ever felt a void in your heart, a sense of inner emptiness and boredom? Have you ever attempted to drown that emotional vacuum by engaging in gratifying pursuits -- shopping, vacation, going to the movies, eating, drinking, intimacy, reading a good book, drugs, poker -- just to discover that the void has not been filled, maybe it even increased?

That void is the voice of your soul yearning for fulfillment. The soul, a breath of G-d, a spark of infinity, descends from the intimate space of G-d to reside, at times for as long as a century, in a physical body and a mundane world, where its priorities and yearnings are ignored or even scorned. For the soul, a relationship with G-d constitutes her very identity, while in the world she comes to live in, the mere mention of G-d to public school children, "One nation under G-d," is questioned by Federal Government (6).

Your soul needs G-d, it craves G-d; it is a part of G-d. When your soul is connected to G-d it is serene, calm and fulfilled, like an infant in its mother's bosom.

In that sense, each of us is a small Jeremiah, a soul anguished and pained by its exile in an environment where its yearnings go unnoticed (7).

The Messenger

What is the purpose of the soul embarking on a journey that will inevitably cause it much grief?

To answer this question, G-d begins His messages to Jeremiah, and every one of our inner souls, as it is being dispatched on its challenging mission, with the following words: "A prophet to the nations I have made you." You have not been sent to earth in order to maintain your spiritual integrity; that you could have accomplished far better in heaven. Rather, you were dispatched to the earth to serve as a messenger, a prophet, to introduce G-dliness and holiness to your physical, brute body and to the material world around you. You are being sent into the earthly domain in order to link heaven with earth (8).

Does the frustration and anguish you will experience as a result of the ongoing conflict in your life between your ego-oriented space and your G-d oriented space frighten you, my precious soul? No need. That's the way it was meant to be. You were chosen to create a spiritual revolution within your own body and within your own psyche -- and revolutions are never easy.

An Anxious soul

Yet the soul is anxious. Like a young emissary dispatched to influence a foreign, hostile country, the soul is intimidated by the physical body’s incessant claims that it's the only true reality.

It's a familiar feeling to many of us: We feel the void; we realize that our souls need spirituality and G-dliness like the body needs nutrition. Yet our materialistic urges are so powerful that they cast a shadow on the soul's light, challenging its authenticity each day.

As a result, the soul pulls back and begins to questions its own validity: "Maybe my body and the world around me has it right after all. Perhaps we could just be content satisfying our physical cravings and don't need a continuous strenuous relationship with an invisible reality we call G-d? Perhaps spirituality is ultimately an illusion, a product of our mortal fear and insecurity? Maybe it is a delusion in order to give us some hope and meaning, “opiate for the masses”?

Thus G-d turns to each and every soul with a message of personal empowerment: "When I had not yet formed you in the belly, I already recognized you."

Let not your spiritual identity shrink in insecurity in the face of adversity, G-d speaks to the soul. Your spirituality, your Divine essence, is the most innate part of your existence. Before you were even formed in the belly, “I recognized you.” Your relationship with G-d constitutes the deepest core of your personal identity; it precedes your physical consciousness and your body.

G-d continues to boost the little Jeremiah in each of us -- "And when you had not yet come forth from the womb, I sanctified you:"

The Talmud (9) describes the experience of the embryo while in the womb, "A lamp is lit above the child's head, by which it can see from one end of the world to the other end; there are no days during which a person experiences more bliss! than th ose days in his mother's womb. They [G-d and the angels] teach the unborn child the entire Torah."

While you were still in your mother's womb, you were sanctified and granted all of the resources to confront the world and transform it into a divine abode, a world of goodness, love and light (10).

Sure, some will challenge the soul’s profound awareness of G-d, claiming – often with religious fervor -- that all religion is a delusion; but no scientific truth can pose any threat to religion rightly conceived as a search for moral order and spiritual meaning. Science can tell us how; it can’t teach us why. The soul was implanted within us to ask -- and answer -- the question of ”why.”.

I'm not a speaker

Yet the soul is still bashful.

"And I said, 'Aha! My Lord, G-d, behold! - I know not how to speak, for I am but a lad.'"

Perhaps, laments the soul to G-d, I can retain my own integrity even while residing in a hostile environment. But how can you expect of me to change my body and to transform the world? I can preserve my power but I can by no means communicate the message to my earthly counterpart. Compared with the power of the physical and the sensual, I am but a lad.

"G-d said to me, 'Do not say 'I am but a lad,' rather to wherever I send you shall you go, and whatever I command you shall you speak. Fear not before them, for I am with you. See I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to raze; to build and to plant."

Your soul must remember how powerful it is. Sure, at the onset it seems that the soul is fragile relative to the forces that oppose its soft, still voice. But if the soul only chooses to flex it muscles, it will discover its extraordinary strength. Whenever you are engaged in a battle with your ugly nature, you can turn to G-d and say, "Hay, help me with this punch." You will be surprised with the results (11).

Transcending Our Collective Fear

Just as this is true regarding every individual soul, it is also true concerning our people as a whole.

We are living in a time when many of us are intimidated by “world opinion” and are afraid to stand up completely and unambiguously to terror. We are uncomfortable being Jews who are proud of their faith and heritage.

"We may know the truth that Israel belongs to us," many Jews cry. "But the world will never accept it."

We underestimate our spiritual power as well as the inner desire of the non-Jewish world to see the Jewish people as a beacon of moral and divine truth.

We must affirm to ourselves the timeless words of G-d to Jeremiah: "'Do not say 'I am but a lad,' rather to wherever I send you shall you go, and whatever I command you shall you speak. Fear not before them, for I am with you … See I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to raze; to build and to plant." (12).

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Footnotes:
1) This is the Haftorah read on the first Shabbas following the 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tamuz (this year falling out on Thursday, June 27), when we begin a three-week period of mourning over the destruction of both Temples and the fall of Jerusalem.
2) Jeremiah 1:14
3) Ibid. 1: 17.
4) See Zohar vol. 2 p. 179b; Midrash Rabah Koheles in the beginning.
5) See Bava Basra 14b; Midrash Yalkut Shemoni Yermeyahoo section 262.
Parenthetically, at this point the Muslim religion has not yet come into existence. It was founded more than one thousand years later.
6) On June 26, 2002, a Federal court in California issued a verdict pronouncing the recital of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools as unconstitutional, since it describes the American people as "One nation under G-d." It was quite amazing to observe how almost all Senators and members of Congress gathered to proclaim their allegiance to the Pledge of Allegiance.
7) A large portion of the Kabbalistic and Chassidic literature revolves around this concept of the soul's painful exile in a physical body and a materialistic world. See, for example, Tanya chapters 2 and 45; Likkutei Torah Pinchas p. 78c; ibid. Reah p. 32c.
8) See Eitz Chaim portal 26 chapter 1; quoted and explained in Tanya chapter 37.
9) Niddah 30b.
10) Though the Talmud continues to state that "as soon as the child is to emerge into the air of the world, an angel comes and strikes it on its mouth, causing it to forget the entire Torah," it is obvious that the learning in the womb has a major impact on the infant's future life (if not -- it would be a futile endeavor.) The learning in the womb allows the Torah to resonate later on in li! fe like nothing else in the world (see Likkutei Torah Shlach p. 44a.)
11) This also explains the reason for reading this part of the story in the Haftorah of this Shabbas, not only the second part of the chapter, where G-d sends Jeremiah to warn Israel of its future destruction, a message connected to this time of the year (see footnote #1.) At first glance there is no apparent reason to read on this Shabbas the conversation between Jeremiah and G-d about his fear.
Yet, as we begin the period of the three-weeks, remembering our descent into a dark exile, this message of self-empowerment is extremely timely.
12) This essay is based on an address by the Lubavitvcher Rebbe, Shabbas Pinchas Tamuz 17, 5721, July 1, 1961 (Part of it was published in Likkutei Sichos vol. 18 pp. 342-350).

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