Jeremiah was a bullfrog, was a good friend of mine…singing Joy the world.” What does this song have to do with today’s Torah portion? Why is Jeremiah compared to a bullfrog? What is a prophet?

“Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:4

This sets up this week’s haftarah portion—if you are Sephardic and which we will read this week. It ties into this week’s Torah portion because they are both about call. What do we mean that Jeremiah and Moses were called? Who is called today?

While there is a lot written about Moses and Jeremiah, I want to compare this verse to another one from Psalms. Psalm 139: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me…For You have formed my reins; You have knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:1, 13

This is “Relational Judaism” as we have been studying at its best. This is that I-Thou relationship that Buber and then Wolfson have been discussing. While we talk about prophets and rabbis and priests and ministers being called or having a calling, this verse means that each of us is known by God, even before we are born, and set apart and make holy, consecrated, sanctified for something. What is that something?

The use of the word womb is common to both, as is the idea that the Lord has known someone before birth.  Is this a common metaphor in the Tanakh or is it unique to these two sources? Is there a connection between G-d’s mercy and compassion frequently linked to word rechem, meaning womb, and knowing someone before birth?  Is this knowledge a source of comfort or of fear? Because it is talking about womb, a uniquely feminine image, are there any feminist interpretations of this imagery?

Jack Lundbom explains that there is “an inclusio” of major importance we find by comparing verses 1:6: with verse 20:18 when Jeremiah laments, (and Jeremiah always laments!) “Why from the womb did I come forth to see trouble and sorrow and have my days end in shame?”  He believes that it is natural when contemplating one’s death to reflect on one’s birth as well. it can be read, “Why did I come forth from the womb? Answer: Because Yahweh called me before I came forth from the womb.”[1] (page 28-29). Despite the despair of this classic lament, it answers with “affirmation and hope.” Jeremiah was born because G-d called him forth to be born.

It would seem that the new Jewish Publication Society translation of verse 4 makes yet another point by arranging the spacing as it does, emphasizing the three verbs associated with Jeremiah’s call:

“Before I created you in the womb, I selected you
Before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.”[2]

There is the sense that G-d needed or required Jeremiah, that G-d knew him and that he was set aside and made holy.

Only Jeremiah is told that he will be a prophet to the nations. While many of the commentators point out that it is predestined that G-d will call Jeremiah, it is critical to note that Jeremiah, like Moses objects and says that he is too young and cannot speak. This makes both of them what we call “reluctant prophets” like Jonah who did not want to go to Nivevah and tried to run away, as far as he could, all the way to Tarshish. Not until God reassures Jeremiah that G-d will be present can Jeremiah accept what he must do. Only then could Jeremiah accept his appointment, his task to be a prophet to the nations.

Holladay points out that the verb y-tz-r is usually taken to mean formed or fashioned. However, it could be a ‘near miss’ with the verb tz-v-r, to summon as in Psalm 77:3. “It is striking that in Isa 49:1, 5 we have ‘from the womb he has called me and ‘shapes me from the womb,’ two phrases within Isa 49:1-6 which may reflect the expected verb and the actual verb in the present phrase.”[3] He believes that “I summoned you” makes more sense, “given the diction of Psalm 139:13..All five verbs then point to Jrm’s being called. In Jrm’s case his birth and his vocation are coterminous: there was never a time he was not summoned.”[4] Based on this work, it would seem that Holladay is correct that these calls of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Moses and Gideon follow a formula of commission, objection, reassurance and sign of G-d’s presence.

Ellen Davis Lewin She argues that Jeremiah has a dual role, both that of prophet—G-d’s messenger and of mediator.  But she pushes the point further. “His life is intolerable because he is G-d’s prophet to a faithless people and cannot himself forsake that commission. Jeremiah’s desperate question, ‘Why did I come out of the womb?’ points directly to the answer given before it was ever posed: ‘To be a prophet to the nations.’ (1.5).” It is Jeremiah’s use of his own personal struggles to inform his prophecy and to enhance his authority. “He submits the record of his own struggle as both a contrast to the easy lies spoken by the prophets of hope and an aid to the community’s interpretation. Jeremiah offers the prophetic process itself as the validation of his message…Like the people he addresses, Jeremiah has faced G-d as Enemy. Only that personal confrontation substantiates his claim that G-d is Deliverer, for Israel as for himself, and provides the basis on which the argument for authority must finally rest.”[5]

Yehoshua Gitay argues in his article in Prophecy and Prophets published by Scholars Press that there is a difference between the private vision of Jeremiah and his call with the fact that this experience has been published.  Publishing it makes it public and accessible to all. “The call of the prophet is apparently a dramatic moment in his life, and one could expect a vivid description of Jeremiah’s call in the book ascribed to him. However, the narrative uses a stereotyped stylistic structure (Habel); and one should question whether this formulaic approach concealed any expression of personal feeling that might reflect the prophet’s intimate religious experience. The act of publishing contradicts the intimate tone of a private affair; it indicates that the narrator seeks to turn the personal affair of Jeremiah’s call into a public event.”[6]

“The reference to beten, (belly) connotes not the physicality of formation. The belly is the place of emotions, thus conveying the intimate relationship between G-d and the chosen one..”[7] Not only was Jeremiah called before he was born, but G-d promises in verse 9 that he need not fear, for like Moses and Gideon, G-d’s presence will go with him. These are words that are meant to comfort Jeremiah.; the phrase ‘I will be with you’ appears in Exod. 3:12 in the call to Moses and in Judg 6:16 in the call to Gideon.”[8] Lawrence Boadt links the calls of Moses and Jeremiah together by pointing out that with both there is a divine meeting, a call, an objection, a reassurance and a sign.”[9]

But what about for the rest of us? Do we have to be selected and chosen, set apart and made holy by G-d before we receive that reassurance? I don’t think so. Psalm 139 has been much beloved throughout the centuries as a promise of G-d’s omnipresence and omniscience.

Psalm 139 begins with the idea that G-d searches us and knows us as individuals. Although the object “me” is not included in the Hebrew it is understood in most translations. The verb form kh-k-r has the dual sense of “to search” and “to examine.” The same verb khokair is repeated in Jeremiah 17:10, when it says, “I, the Lord search the heart” Both the Soncino edition of Psalms and Rabbi Freehof have linked these verses together. As we have said earlier, this kind of knowing denotes an intimate form of relationship. Freehof sees this as “One of the most intimate and spiritual of the psalms. The psalmist is so conscious of G-d’s nearness, that he feels that G-d knows his every thought. But G-d though intimate and near, is also omnipresent, filling the universe. There is no place where we can escape G-d’s presence. It is no wonder that G-d knows our every thought since He is our Creator…It is not strange that G-d knows man so well. He has created him and formed him even in the womb.”[10]

This explanation takes it out of the specific call of a specific person Jeremiah and makes idea that G-d knows each of us before our birth accessible to us all.  The psalm continues with the emphasis on the word You, that is repeated in the Hebrew, implying that only G-d can know us that well, that intimately—in our hearts, thoughts, feelings, our whole being.

The Soncino edition of Psalms quotes Maimonides as saying, ‘This is the noblest utterance in the Psalter of pure contemplative theism, animated and not crushed by the thought of G-d’s omniscience and omnipresence.’…The writer’s realization of G-d is most intimate and personal, the effect of religious experience rather than of rational meditation.” [11]  It cites Ibn  Ezra as declaring this psalm ‘the most glorious on the theme of the ways of G-d and is unequalled in the five Books of the Psalter..[12]

Weiser in his commentary on Psalms teaches that more important is the idea that this is not an impersonal account “in abstract theological definitions” but rather his personal experience of the reality of G-d. This view he shared with his readers and imparts “fresh, lively tones which even today still directly touch the heart of the reader.”[13] God did not stop speaking with the deaths of Ezra and Nehemiah. It is still possible to discern God’s presence and God’s call today! That fills us with hope.

The analogy between Psalm 139 and Jeremiah’s call “It also implies that G-d will take care of Jeremiah, that his special love for him runs deep, deeper than even that of the parents who conceived and gave birth to their son. This piety echoes the trust expressed by the psalmist in Ps 22:10-11 that G-d had watched over him and cared for him since his conception in the womb. In Hebrew, knowing carries the sense of experiencing intimate friendship and strong loyalty. Consecration comes from the same Hebrew word that expresses holiness. It will not just be a dedication, it will be a religious commitment of a special kind.”[14]

It is also important to understand the root of the word for womb. Like the G-d who is accessible even when hidden in the dark and can create even in darkness, the womb is a dark place but full of compassion and warmth. The mystery of creation of the world by G-d is likewise echoed by the personal creation of a person by G-d in his or her mother’s womb. G-d is not limited to any physical space nor is G-d limited in G-d’s ability to create.

So what is a call? How do we see this as modern Jews? How does it differ from what Christians use in terms of a minister being called or feeling called?

When I was applying to rabbinical school, I was told to avoid the phrase. Too Christian. People would look on you with skepticism, even fear. Maybe you are crazy. God is talking to you. If someone told me they saw a bush burning unconsumed, I might think they were crazy too. But I think something is going on—something deep. Something profound.

Perhaps Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian Theologian, has it right: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

So how do we find out where that intersection is—a place where we are happy, joyful and we can do something to make the world a better place? There is one book that I routinely buy two at a time, because I loan someone a copy and it won’t come back. That book begins to help each of us answer that question, sort of a Jewish What Color is Your Parachute. Jeffrey Salkin who wrote Putting G-d on the Guest List about Bnei Mitzvah, wrote, Being G-d’s Partner and finding the spiritual connection to our work.

He begins by telling the story of his move from Pennsylvania to Long Island. He was impressed with the head of the moving crew, a big, burly, enthusiastic guy, as Salkin said, “a dead ringer for Willie Nelson,” but someone who saw the connection between is work and what God wants him to be doing. He was enthusiastic precisely because as he said, “Moving is hard for most people. It’s a very vulnerable time for them. People are nervous about going to a new community and about having strangers pack their most precious possessions. So, I think God wants me to treat my customers with love and to make them feel that I care about their things and their life. God wants me to help make their changes go smoothly. If I can be happy about it, maybe they can be, too.” Salkin suggests in his book, and I agree, that each person has a unique call, a unique role to play that will make the world a better place while being happy. For me, I have found that in the rabbinate.

Many people spend this quiet period, call it what you will, Winter Break, Christmas Vacation, the week between Christmas and New Year’s reflecting and setting goals for the new (secular) year. Some think about work and their connection to it. If that is the case for you, feel free to borrow the book. It will sit up here on the bimah. It will guide you through thinking about the connection between spirituality and work and help you find more meaning—either in what you are doing now—or in what you might like to be doing.

We see then, in the case of both Psalms and Jeremiah, we learn that G-d can know a person before birth and therefore is in intimate and personal relationship with him. I think perhaps what is most significant then is that while the call of Jeremiah represents a personal experience made public by its publishing, the fact that the psalmist is able to describe a similar sense means that it is possible for any of us, not only those called to be prophets. We, then, have a decision to make about whether to accept our call or our relationship to the Divine as did Jeremiah or whether we will turn a deaf ear and walk away. If we accept our call, and make the world a better place, then we will find joy. Joy to the World. May all our celebrations be merry and bright and may the new year dawn with a renewed ability to hear that still small voice of God so that we can find our place in the world and find our call.