“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Attributed to Winston Churchill

This week’s role model is a particularly personal one. Living with a progressive neurological disease inevitably changes the way I think about words like success, victory and perseverance. Reflecting on the life of Yirmiyahu (known in English as Jeremiah), I realized that he has been teaching me a lesson I need now more than ever.

A prophet without the usual credentials

Yirmiyahu was never the obvious hero. He was not a king like David, a military leader like Yehoshua (Joshua), or a miracle-working prophet like Eliyahu (Elijah). His task was simply to speak G-d’s truth, even when nobody wanted to hear it.

For almost forty years he warned that unless the nation repented, Jerusalem would fall. Instead of listening, the people mocked him, imprisoned him, beat him, threw him into a muddy cistern and accused him of treason. In the end, everything he had foretold came to pass. Jerusalem fell, the Beit HaMikdash (The Jewish Temple) was destroyed and the people were exiled.

Judged only by visible success, Yirmiyahu appears to have failed. He did not change the course of the nation, avert the catastrophe, or prevent the world he loved from collapsing around him. Yet Jewish tradition remembers him as one of the greatest prophets who ever lived.

Why success was never the measure

Because G-d was never measuring him by the outcome.

G-d says something similar to the prophet Yechezkel (Ezekiel) :

בֶּן־אָדָם צֹפֶה נְתַתִּיךָ לְבֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the House of Israel.” (Yechezkel 3:17)

A watchman’s responsibility is to sound the alarm. Whether the city listens is........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)