NOTES for Bar 1:21

Why were the prophets listened to so rarely and so unwillingly? What does it mean, in general, to hear a prophet? The prophets did not say anything entirely new. They often rethought traditional ideas about Judgment, about the Kingdom, about communion with God, and were the first to speak of the coming Messiah. Most of what the prophets said was already known to their listeners in one way or another: most often they reminded them of the Torah, of the need to keep the commandments, and of the fact that no sacrifices can replace living communion with God, without which they simply lose their meaning. Many people probably thought that they had heard nothing interesting or new, that the prophets were saying banalities, and that there was no reason to listen to them.

Fallen human nature tends to seek variety more than depth. The prophets tried to direct their listeners into the depths, having in view above all their spiritual life. The newness of the prophetic call in the life of a specific person could appear only if that person truly tried to keep the commandments, and not occasionally, from time to time, but constantly, every day and every hour. Then such a person would very soon see clearly that, by and large, he was no righteous man at all, and that he was still infinitely far from the ideal proposed by the Torah. A person would suddenly understand that keeping the commandments is hardest precisely in the everyday flow that makes up the life of every ordinary person. Any reminders of the commandments would seem quite appropriate to him, just as every sound that can keep him from falling asleep seems appropriate to a sentry afraid to sleep at his post.

There have been few people in every age who desired such a life. Occasional religiosity is not enough here; what is needed are constant spiritual efforts, which become fitting when God becomes for a person the unquestionable and genuine reality of his own life. The same reality He was for the prophets. Then the path of righteousness, leading into the Kingdom of God, takes on meaning as well. Otherwise, alas, all calls to keep the Torah seem to those who listen either banalities or altogether empty words. Although the emptiness they see is not in the words of the prophets, but in their own heart.

How much strength it takes to communicate with someone on whose side there is truth, when on your side there is shame. And not only to communicate. To come and ask forgiveness is hard enough. And how hard it is to accept forgiveness. How much one has to overcome within oneself in order then to continue communicating with, being friends with, or loving a person on whose side there is truth, when on your side there is shame. And if this situation repeats itself day after day? The natural human reaction to this is flight. One wants to find a place where nothing reminds one of shame over oneself. A place where one can at least avoid seeing the person one hates because that person lets one see oneself without embellishment.

One can leave a person, one can try to forget everything and start everything over, hoping it will not happen again. But where can one go from God? After all, on only one side of the coin is written, "To the Lord our God belongs righteousness, but to us shame." On the other side one can read no less plainly: "Whoever rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me." This does not deprive us of the ability to choose how and with whom we will live, but it shows us very clearly what pit we will fall into if we decide after all to live without God.