On August 6, 1945, 16 years old Joan heard about the atomic bombs that devastated Japan and made a vow to never bring children into this cruel world. 10 years later she changed her mind and gave birth to my oldest sister. Three more children followed, and many grand and great grand children since.
When recently asked by my son, her grandson, about that vow, my mother replied that the life force just took over when the time came. Life is stronger than hate.
And many of us are grateful, even as we appreciate the serious intention of her terrible vow.
How many would follow her example into the 21st century as the future looms bleak? How many have taken - or kept - such vows in history?
Jeremiah, living in the pre-disaster-zone which is Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE, takes on a similar vow - but sticks to it.
It isn’t clear when he is instructed by YHWH to be celibate-for-life but it would become a central element of his personal and professional identity - the only prophet to officially be celibate, without family, wife or children. He will eventually become a role model for monastic traditions, mostly in Christian contexts.
But at first, today’s chapter makes it clear that he did not marry as a divine demand - a personal sacrifice meant to be a life-long public performance of a prophetic message: The end is near, and it’s looking bad.
He describes the terrible message he got from YHWH:
You are not to marry and not to have sons and daughters in this place. For thus said YHWH concerning any sons and daughters that may be born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bear them, and concerning the fathers who beget them in this land:
They shall die gruesome deaths. They shall not be lamented or buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, and their corpses shall be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.
“Jeremiah’s celibate way of life symbolizes the challenges that would face the Judahites after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.. He was advised to take up the celibate way.. commanded to withdraw from normal social interaction because those forms of interaction we’re about to come to an end for the Judahites.”
Joan’s third child, Rabbi Benny Lau writes:
“his celibacy serves as a sign and demonstration of his curse that all who bear children in "this place" will lose them, and that grief will befall the entire community. This is not a one-time action (like the acts of Ezekiel, for example), but the establishment of a mode of existence for a young prophet condemned to barrenness and isolation. It is one of the climactic moments of Jeremiah's tragedy. From now on, rather than follow the course of life, he pursues that of death and destruction. “
So Jeremiah’s celibacy is a prophetic act that sacrifices a life with family and friends as a warning to his people. Can there be more blending of the personal and political than this?
But perhaps there’s more to Jeremiah’s loneliness and isolation, barrenness and solitary life than the observance of divine command in public service?
One wonders about his desires and needs, human longings and identities. Perhaps he wasn’t able to get married to a woman - and become an ancestor in the heteronormative realities of his day? Perhaps he was queer, and an elaborate prophetic reasoning for religious reasons covered up his isolation?
It isn’t just his celibacy but an entire avoidance of social living that defines Jeremiah. Later in the chapter we learn that by command from YHWH he barely gathered with others as one does in moments of joy and grief:
Was it the voice inside his head forbidding him from consoling the mourners, same as preventing his simple socializing at a local tavern? Was it fear of people, fear of public - before it became a protest and and a political-prophetic ‘noble’ act?
Either way - we learn how lonely he must have been, and how isolated.
What more can we learn from this prophet about how to listen to and pay attention, honor and celebrate all the voices in our head, and in our midst, and on the fringe, and all the ones, for whatever reason, lonely? Perhaps if the people of Jerusalem would have also welcomed him, as is, despite his wrathful orations, perhaps.. But his horrific visions did not stop and from his lonely perch he saw what was indeed coming.
Perhaps this is the fate of the faithful prophet, celibate or not. Jeremiah will die childless but his words, visions, and name, perhaps despite himself, will live on.
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Breaking the Bottle: Jeremiah’s Prophetic Performance Art
OUR NEXT BELOW THE BIBLE BELT ZOOM TALK - 9/13 - AT 5PM ET.
Was Jeremiah a performing artist protesting social ills? Was he a poet speaking truth to power or a madman everybody tried to avoid?
What does his story have to teach us today, on the eve of a new Jewish year?
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