Bookends to the Jews' First Experience with Statehood

Moses inaugurated Jewish national independence. The prophet Jeremiah comes to oversee its collapse.

A 1512 fresco of the prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

A 1512 fresco of the prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Atar Hadari
Observation
Atar Hadari
Jan. 17 2020
About the author

Atar Hadari’s Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of H. N. Bialik (Syracuse University Press) was a finalist for the American Literary Translators’ Association Award. His Lives of the Dead: Poems of Hanoch Levin earned a PEN Translates award and was released in 2019 by Arc Publications. He was ordained by Rabbi Daniel Landes and is completing a PhD on William Tyndale’s translation of Deuteronomy.

Tomorrow, synagogues across the world will read the opening chapters of the book of Exodus, but will follow it with different supplemental readings from the Prophets. Ashkenazim will read a passage from Isaiah, condemning sin but also promising redemption. For their part, Sephardim will read the opening chapter of Jeremiah, which begins thus:

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More about: Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah, Moses, Prophets, Religion & Holidays

 
 
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