Torah Lesson 5 Jonah and Jeremiah: the Reluctant Prophets

Torah Lesson 5 Jonah and Jeremiah: The Reluctant Prophets

INTRODUCTION This lesson is our first foray into the literary prophets. The books of the literary prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These books are termed “literary” because they contain speeches, poems, and stories written by various prophets in ancient Israel as opposed to the first four books we find in the N’vi-im section of the Tanach, which tell the history of the Israelites following their arrival in Eretz Yisrael/ the Land of Israel. While many of the prophets in the Bible were reluctant, two prophets, Jeremiah and Jonah, are particularly hesitant to take on this role. Jeremiah loses all of his friends and is jailed for his prophecy against the king and his statement that the kingdom will be conquered. However, he is com- pelled to follow God’s decree and speak to the Israelites of the problems God sees in how they treat one another. Unlike Jeremiah, Jonah is told to speak to a non-Jewish community about their behavior. Jonah attempts to run away from his calling, yet he finds out that one cannot run away from God.

After completing this lesson the students should have a greater understanding of the difficult situations in which God often puts the prophets. They are expected to speak out against the injustices that God sees in the world. However, what the prophet says is generally unpopular since he or she is castigating people for their inappropriate, albeit common, behavior. At the beginning of the lesson the students are asked to determine how they would feel if one of their parents asked them to tell their friends to stop their wrong behavior. On the one hand, a student might do what the parent asks, as they know they need to listen to the parent. However, it is not always easy to tell your friends something that might make them mad at you. Through this activity the students will examine the different and conflicting emotions the prophets experienced during their time. Then they will examine two prophets in particular, Jeremiah and Jonah, who experienced this conflict during their entire prophetic experience.

Teachers may want to refer to Level 3, Torah Lesson 5, “Parashat K’doshim Session Bet: Tochecha (Rebuking Others),” for an additional perspective about the individual speaking out in the face of wrongdoing.

ENDURING UNDERSTANDINGS • Torah is an ongoing dialogue between the text and its students.

• Torah is real in our daily lives: It goes with us wherever we are.

• Developing the skills to study Torah is essential to integrating Torah into our lives.

• The prophets were focused on reminding the Jewish people how God wants us to live, and their mes- sages are at the heart of Reform Judaism. 53 54 Torah Lesson 5 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS 1. What does the Torah have to say to me and my world?

2. How can Torah study help me in my everyday life?

3. Why is the Torah different from other books?

4. What is prophecy?

5. What is a prophet?

6. In what ways do the prophets and what they said (prophecy) remind us how God wants us to live?

7. How can I as a Reform Jew understand how God wants me to live through the writings of the prophets?

QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED 1. Why would a prophet be reluctant to hear God’s call?

2. How did Jeremiah and Jonah answer God’s call?

3. How would you react to God’s call?

EVIDENCE OF UNDERSTANDING • Students will reflect on and discuss what it might be like to be told to speak out against something that others are doing wrong.

• Through research and presentations, students will explain why Jeremiah and Jonah were reluctant to be prophets.

• Students will compare Jeremiah’s and Jonah’s reactions to their calls from God.

• Students will compare the results of Jeremiah’s and Jonah’s prophecies.

LESSON OVERVIEW • Set Induction (15 minutes)

• Text Study and Prophet Presentations (35 minutes)

• Conclusion (5 minutes)

MATERIALS NEEDED • Copies of Steven E. Steinbock’s The Gift of Wisdom: The Books of Prophets and Writings (New York: UAHC Press, 2001).

• Four signs describing different reactions to scenario (see pages 55–56)

• My Reaction Worksheet (page 59) CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life Jonah and Jeremiah: The Reluctant Prophets 55

• Prophet Worksheet (page 60)

• Jeremiah and Jonah Background and Text sheets (pages 61–64)

• Costumes for presentations (bathrobe or sheet, sandals)

•Pens

• Pencils

LESSON PLAN

SET INDUCTION (15 MINUTES)

The Set Induction poses a question that students may find very intriguing and significant for their own lives. The teacher may want to allow extra time if student interest in the discussion warrants it.

1. Say to the students: Imagine that your parent comes to you and tells you:

I am concerned that your friends might be doing something illegal. Graffiti has been found on the walls of the school. The reason I think your friends are involved is that I have seen some sketches on their notebooks when they have come to do homework with you at our home and the pictures look similar to what has been found on the school walls. This is very serious. I am pret- ty sure that you are not involved because we have spoken about respect for other people’s property and also because of how you feel about the school. I hope that I am correct. I am not happy that your friends are doing this and I think that their parents should be told, but I believe it would be better if they told their parents, not me. Your friends might also be more likely to tell their parents if it comes from you rather than from me. I want you to tell your friends that they need to stop vandalizing school property and that they need to tell their parents and the school, then apologize and make things right.

If you are working with older students, you may want to consider presenting the following alterna- tive scenario:

I see that your group of friends are being self-destructive. They are stealing beer from their parents’ refrigerators and drinking when they think no one is looking. But when I have picked you up from their homes I have seen your friends trying to throw away the cans so I cannot see them. This is very serious. I know that you are not drinking because I have been smelling your breath when you get in the car and watching how you act and react. I am not happy that your friends are doing this and I think that their parents should be told, but I believe it would be better if they told their parents, not me. Your friends might also be more likely to tell their parents if it comes from you rather than from me. I want you to tell your friends that they need to stop drinking and that they need to tell their parents, apologize, and make things right.

2. Say to the students: “Think about how you might react if your parent said this to you. Look around the room and you will find different possible responses.” In four corners of the room, post signs with the following text: 56 Torah Lesson 5 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life

• I would ignore my parent and pretend that he or she never said anything to me.

• I would argue with my parent and tell him or her that I cannot do this.

• I would do what my parent told me to do.

• I would . . . (I have a different response than the other three options).

Tell the students to go to the area of the room with the sign that best describes how they would react. Give the students time to think about their reaction and to move to the area.

3. Hand out copies of My Reaction Worksheet (page 59). Tell the students to complete the worksheet individually, then discuss their answers with their groups. Circulate around the room to help the groups and listen to what they are sharing. If you have a teaching assistant, he or she could be valu- able in assisting with this as well.

4. Allow the students to stay in their groups but have them focus on you. Pose the questions from the worksheet and ask different people from the four groups to share their thoughts so that they can learn from each other. Not everyone needs to share their thoughts and ideas for each question, but try to allow each student who would like to share a thought or idea to express him- or herself for at least one question. To compare and contrast, it might be helpful if you or a student records the answers either on the board or on chart paper. When each of the questions has been explored, take a few moments to review and show how the different reactions lend themselves to different (or similar) results. Again, be cognizant of the time, as this activity can certainly last longer than the suggested time.

5. You might want to conclude by asking the following questions:

• Was it difficult for you to decide where to go?

• What was difficult for you in deciding where to go?

• What did you think about that helped you make your decision?

6. Conclude by saying to the students:

Today we are going to look at two prophets who were reluctant to heed God’s call. Just like when a parent tells us to do something that we think will be difficult to do and might make us unpopular, Jeremiah and Jonah did not want to be God’s messengers and never enjoyed their positions or status. Jeremiah and Jonah knew that they were telling people to change behaviors toward one another and that the people would not want to hear God’s message and might be angry at God’s messenger.

LEARNING ACTIVITY Text Study and Prophet Presentations (35 minutes)

1. Break the students up into two groups. This can be done by combining two of the four groups from the activity above if it makes the groups somewhat evenly divided. You can have the two groups pre- divided to ensure an even distribution or you can randomly divide the students once they are in class. CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life Jonah and Jeremiah: The Reluctant Prophets 57

If you have a large class and two groups would be too big, then break them up into four groups and give two groups each the same assignment.

2. Explain to the students that each group will be looking at one prophet. One group (or two if you have four groups) will learn about the prophet Jeremiah and the other group (or two if you have four groups) will learn about the prophet Jonah. Distribute the background material, texts, and worksheets (pages 60–64). After studying the material, the students should choose one person from the group to dress up and pretend to be the prophet. At that time she or he will share information about the prophet’s life, quote some of the important things that Jeremiah/Jonah said, and talk about what was important that Jeremiah/Jonah learned for himself and taught those he was sent to speak to.

3. Tell the students that they should use the Prophet Worksheet (page 60) and the Jeremiah or Jonah background information and texts (pages 61–64) to help them gather information. This information should be used by the group to help prepare the “prophet” to make her/his presentation. The prophet should be prepared to answer questions that the other group might ask to better understand Jeremiah/Jonah. If you think that too much time will be spent having the students choose who will get to play the prophet, you might want to make the decision for the group so they can get focused on their tasks faster.

If you think there is not enough time for each student to read all of the material provided in the background and text sheets for Jeremiah and Jonah, then you can suggest that the students break up into smaller groups and read only a couple of selections and share the information with their larger “prophet” group.

4. Jeremiah and Jonah should stand before the class and each make her/his presentation. Students should be allowed to ask questions of each prophet to gain greater understanding of the prophet and his life.

CONCLUSION (5 MINUTES) 1. When the presentations are completed, ask the students to consider the following questions and share their answers with the group:

• What did you learn from Jeremiah or Jonah that made you think or question something about your own life or the world?

• What did you learn about yourself today?

2. Ask the students to turn to page 8 in their workbooks and answer the following questions:

• From what you learned in today’s lesson, what do you think was the most important thing the prophets said or did?

• What do you think was significant for our world about what you learned today?

• What does today’s learning make you think about in your own life?

• What was important to Jeremiah and Jonah?

• What is the job of a prophet? 58 Torah Lesson 5 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life

HOMEWORK

Tell the students: Over the next week you should look through the newspaper. Find an article that you think shows something wrong with the world that you believe God would be upset to see. Remember to think as if you were a prophet while looking for the article. When you have found the article, cut it out and complete the assignment on page 9 in your workbooks. Remember to bring your assignments to our next class, because we will be discussing them in Torah Lesson 6. CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life 59

My Reaction Worksheet

1. Why would you react this way?

2. What do you think might happen between you and your parent(s) as a result of your decision?

3. What do you think will happen between you and your friends as a result of your decision?

4. What do you think will happen to your friends as a result of your decision?

Prophet Worksheet

Prophet: ______Prophet’s reaction to being called:

Two or three facts about the prophet’s life:

Important statements/quotes:

What the prophet told the people and what the reaction was to his prophecy:

Something the prophet learned about himself:

Jeremiah Background1

Jeremiah lived and spoke his prophecies from 626–586 B.C.E.,2 which is the time just before and during Israel’s exile3 in Babylonia. Jeremiah was quiet, humble, and one of the saddest men found in the Tanach. He even argued with God in an attempt to get away from God’s calling, but Adonai did not let him go away. Because Jeremiah spoke out against almost everyone around him, people were angry with him, so he was often on the run and hiding from authorities. Jeremiah was even in jail and tortured during his life for speaking the words God told him to say. Jeremiah stood outside of the Temple in Jerusalem and spoke out about the way people would bring offerings to the Temple to ask for forgiveness for something wrong they had done, or to give an offering to God for a holiday or festival, but after their offerings the people would continue to treat each other unfairly and badly. Not only did Jeremiah upset the kings and priests of the time, he also upset other prophets. He made many enemies because of what he said to Israel, so he did not have many friends.

Jeremiah Texts

These are the words of Jeremiah. The word of God came to him during the time of Kings Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah of Judah. The word of God came to me: “I chose you before you were born. I appointed you a prophet of the nations.” I said, “Adonai, God, I don’t know how to speak, I am still young.” God said to me, “Don’t say that you are too young. You will go where I send you and say what I command. Do not be afraid, for I will protect you.” God put out a hand and touched my mouth. Then God said to me, “With this I put My words in your mouth. See, I appoint you today to speak to the people.” (Jeremiah 1:1–10)

1Information and translations from Jeremiah from Steven E. Steinbock, The Gift of Wisdom: The Books of Prophets and Writings (New York: UAHC Press, 2001), chapter 16, and A Teacher’s Guide to the Gift of Wisdom (New York: UAHC Press, 2001), p. 78. 2When we write years in B.C.E. the numbers run backward. In other words, we start with the larger number and move to the smaller number toward the number 0. 3Living in exile means living outside of Jerusalem and Israel.

Jeremiah told the people of Israel: This is what Adonai, the God of Israel, says: “Change how you do things and how you act and I will let you live in this land. Don’t keep saying to yourself that you come to bring me offerings. If you really change your ways and actions; if you are fair and good with each other; if you take care of the stranger, orphan, and widow; if you don’t kill innocent people; if you do not follow other gods; only then will I let you live here, in the land that I gave to your ancestors for all time. But now you steal, murder, lie under oath, follow other unproven gods—and then come to My Temple and stand before Me, and say that you are safe here? Safe for what? To continue to be wicked? I have been watching!” (Jeremiah 7:3–11)

You tricked me, God. You overpowered me and won. Everyone is constantly laugh- ing at me and making fun of me. Whenever I speak, I find I have to shout “Violence and destruction!” The words You, God, make me speak cause me to be seen with disgrace and contempt. I tried not to mention God, never speaking God’s name. But Your words have my heart on fire, it is trapped in my bones, I can’t keep the words in myself. I am helpless against your will. (Jeremiah 20:7–9)

Jeremiah was leaving Jerusalem to go stay with someone in the territory of Benjamin. When he got to the gate an officer arrested him. Jeremiah was brought to the authorities who beat him and put him in prison. Jeremiah stayed there a long time in solitary confinement. Eventually, King Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to him secretly so that he could question him. “Is there any word from God?” he asked. “You will be captured by the king of Babylon,” Jeremiah said. “Now, what have I done to you and your people that you have put me in jail? Where are all the prophets who said that the king of Babylon would never attack you here? Please listen to me your majesty. Don’t send me back to that prison to die.” So King Zedekiah had Jeremiah taken to a nicer prison. (Jeremiah 37:12–21)

Jonah Background4

God called on the Hebrew prophets to speak to the Jewish people. However, Jonah was the exception. God called on Jonah to speak ONLY to the non-Jewish people in the Assyrian city of Nineveh and tell the people there to change their ways. Jonah wanted nothing to do with this mission. He did not care if God destroyed the people of Nineveh. Instead of listening to God, Jonah thought he could run away to Tarshish, a city far away from where he should have headed. As Jonah found out, it is impossible to run away from God’s calling. Jonah told the people of Nineveh to repent and change their ways or God would punish them. Jonah did a good job because the people of Nineveh did repent and change. Jonah had mixed feelings about his success. He knew that God was compassionate and forgiving and that nothing would probably happen to the people of Nineveh, which was why he did not want to go in the first place. In Jonah’s eyes he felt his prediction was correct and so he believed that there really was no purpose in his mission. With God, just like with parents, we sometimes don’t really understand why they want us to do things, but we need to do them anyway.

Jonah Texts

God spoke to Jonah saying, “Go at once to Nineveh and tell them that I know about their wickedness.” However, Jonah fled to Tarshish to escape God. He boarded a ship but God blew a powerful wind and a great storm nearly destroyed the ship. The men of the ship cast lots to find out who was responsible for the dis- aster. The lot fell on Jonah. They asked him, “What is your business? Where is your country? What people do you come from?” Jonah replied, “I am a Hebrew, I worship Adonai, who made the earth and the sea.” The men were frightened and asked, “What have you done?” When they learned that he was trying to escape God, they asked, “What can we do to stop the storm?” “Throw me overboard,” he said. “The sea will calm down. I know that this terrible storm happened because of me.” They threw him overboard, and the sea settled. (Jonah 1:1–16)

God sent a huge fish that swallowed Jonah. Jonah stayed in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights and prayed to God. Then God commanded the fish to spit Jonah out on dry land. God spoke to Jonah again, “Go at once to Nineveh and say to them what I tell you.” Jonah did as God commanded. Jonah went to

4Information and translations from Jonah from Steinbock, chapter 19.

Copyright © 2004 URJ Press 64 CHAI: Learning for Jewish Life the city and announced, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!” The people of Nineveh believed in God. They fasted and they put on plain clothes. When the king heard, he proclaimed, “No one, human or animal, may eat or drink. You must wear plain clothes and call to God. Everyone needs to turn from your evil ways. Then perhaps God will also turn from anger and let us live.” When God saw how they were changing from evil to good, God took back the punishment planned for them. (Jonah 2:1–2, 11; 3:1–10)

Jonah was very unhappy that the people of Nineveh were not punished. He prayed to God, saying, “This is exactly what I said would happen when I was back home. That’s why I ran off to Tarshish. I know that you are a compassionate and forgiving God.” Jonah went off and he set up camp where he could watch what was hap- pening in the city. God made a gourd plant grow up over Jonah to give him extra shade and protection. He was very happy about the plant until the next morning, when God had a worm attack the gourd so that it shriveled and died. As the sun rose, God sent a hot east wind to beat down on Jonah’s head until he felt faint. He begged for death. God said, “Are you depressed because of what happened to the plant?” Jonah answered, “Yes, so much that I want to die.” God said, “You care about the plant even though you had spent no time or energy taking care of it. And you say that I shouldn’t care for a great city like Nineveh.” (Jonah 4:1–11)