By Rebbetzin Lauren Levin
Any commitment requires grit, determination and stamina to see it through to the end. And invariably, it is the middle that will be the toughest. At the beginning momentum is high, there is a sense of novelty and our vision and purpose is clear. Towards the end, we can see the ‘finish line’, and adrenaline and motivation carry us once again. But the real work comes in between. Without the novelty of the beginning or the adrenaline of the end, the tough slog and real transformation of any process we have undertaken happens there.
Our haftara, chosen as the second of three specially selected reading for the three weeks is indicative of ‘a middle’. Last week’s haftara focused on recalling the intimate and loving relationship between God and the Jewish people. Next week’s haftara will remind us of what we are working towards, with a vision of the third temple and utopian times. This week’s haftara challenges us to answer difficult questions. Taken from the second chapter of Ezekiel, the haftara is replete with questions. Whether using a Socratic like questioning technique, or a bombardment of rhetorical questions, it generates an intensity in engaging the reader with Jeremiah’s messaging.
The opening questioning is poignant:
“What wrong did your forefathers find in Me, that they distanced themselves from Me?”
It is remarkable that such a vulnerable sounding question comes from the Omnipotent God. From here ensues the detailed description of the Jewish people’s wrong doings at the end of the first temple era, and the way they abandoned the covenant they had made at Sinai. But this question frames the dismay at their downward spiral. When a relationship breaks down, it is often blamed on a particular faux pas or wrong doing. But in reality, the particular negative behaviours stem from a more generic problem: distance. The whirlwind of life can sap our energy and distract us from carving out quality time for the people we love the most. That is when we enter the danger zone: we create a distance, through no ill intent, and once that distance exists, our calling to that person or project wavers. Jeremiah’s opening statement cautions us that in order to address the issues, we need to remedy the root cause, by reinstating closeness once again.
Towards the end of the haftara Jeremiah compares the Jewish people to a vine in a vineyard. Isiah and Ezekiel also used this imagery. The owner of a vineyard plants a vine and looks after it with great care. The owner believes that with nurture and time, his vines will produce a great wine. By invoking this imagery, the prophets remind us of how much God believes in us, invests in us and cares for us. However, Jeremiah uses this imagery as a base and tweaks it in a subtle yet powerful way.
“Yet I planted you a noble vine stock (sorek), throughout of right seed; now how have you turned yourself into a degenerate wild vine to Me (sorei)?”
The vine when described with all its potential is ‘sorek’. Due to their corruption, immorality and lack of faith, the sorek mutated into a word that sounds and looks uncannily similar except for the last letter: sorei. Derived from the word ‘removed’, as the Jewish people distanced themselves from God and allowed themselves to self destruct, they became the antithesis of what God had hoped for from them: they became like a foreign vine. Incompatible with the soil and agricultural conditions, this type of vine will not thrive, but rather has to be uprooted from the vineyard.
It is a harsh, graphic and vivid prophecy. But when the sages curated the selection of passages to be read during the three weeks they carefully chose the last verses. Skipping over some other harsh prophecies that follow in chapter three, we conclude our haftara with the beginning of chapter four[1]:
“If you return, O Israel, says the Lord, to Me, you shall return, and if you remove your detestable things from My Presence, you shall not wander.”
When we look back on relationships that have degenerated or dreams that have been shattered, we can easily despair. But our haftara is not chosen to have that effect. It is a call to action. We can repair and heal. All we need to do is to return.
The ‘middle’ is the hardest and least glamorous, but its where the greatest change transpires. It’s where we reroute from being ‘sorei’ to the ‘sorek’ vine, to reclaim the love, intimacy and destiny of the vineyard.
[1] Due to it being Rosh Chodesh this year we will add on extra verses in addition to these extra two verses.