How do we behave in exile, especially when we do not feel as though we are in exile? We turn to Yirmiyahu, the prophet who foretold of the first exile to Babylon, for advice. He preempted what the ancient Israelites may have thought was the appropriate religious response by writing a letter to his followers. The gloom and doom that we would naturally expect the prophet to suggest – and that fills page after page of his prophetic testimony – is curiously absent from his letter. Instead, he presents a formula that strikes us with its contemporary resonances.
In chapter 29, we read of the letter that Yirmiyahu wrote to a group of exiles in Babylon, which he dispatched from the land of Israel with Elasah, the man whom King Tzidkiyahu sent to Babylon to see King Nebuchadnezzar. In addition to Elasah’s diplomatic mission, he was also to present this letter as guidance for the small but growing community of exiles. The chapter begins with the letter’s intended audience:
“This is the text of the letter which the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the priests, the prophets, the rest of the elders of the exile community, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar has exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon…” (Yirmiyahu 29:1)
The condition of exile changes personal and communal identity. You are in one place but your heart and mind are in another. To quote Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi: “I am in the west, but my heart is in the east.” To be an exile is never to reconcile yourself with where you are, but to live in a persistent hope of where you want to be.
Yirmiyahu, perhaps realizing the crippling impact of dislocation on the soul of a people, advised against this kind of thinking: “This said the L-rd of Hosts, the G-d of Israel, to the whole community which I exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there, do not decrease. And seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you and pray to Hashem on its behalf; for in its prosperity you shall prosper.” (ibid. 29:4–7)
In line after line, Yirmiyahu adds to his demands across generations, not only in the immediacy of the day but with the foreknowledge that exile can become more than a momentary condition – a way of life, for decades if not centuries.
Build houses, he tells them. Plant gardens. Seek the welfare of the city. Building a house is a statement of permanence. This is Yirmiyahu’s starting point. Yet as he moves on, we realize that building a house is perhaps the least permanent act on his list. After all, no matter where you are, you need some form of shelter, even if, as an exile, you build something temporary in keeping with your desire to leave. Planting a garden implies a longer stay – sowing and cultivation require time, and a deeper investment in the life you are living.
In a Midrash on the famous psalm “By the Waters of Babylon” (Tehillim 137), the rabbis say that the question “How can we sing a new song on strange land?” was not rhetorical, but literal. The Levites, in their desperation, cut off their thumbs so that they would not be able to play their instruments for the enemy King Nebuchadnezzar (see Rashi on Kiddushin 69a). They sat instead on the banks of the river and bemoaned their loss. But the Midrash alludes to something darker: by cutting off their thumbs, they made themselves ritually unsuitable for serving G-d in the Temple precincts after their exile (see Vayikra 21:17). Signs of mourning that are permanent can show profound loss – but may also reveal a lack of faith in the future.
Many of Yirmiyahu’s prophecies are harsh, and we might not expect him to offer us a positive prescription for exile. Yet he does. He tells us to become good people, raise good children, and be good citizens, no matter where. He also offers us the belief that a stronger people will make a stronger nation when the exile is over and redemption is on the horizon.
Yishayahu, too, offers his guidance on rebuilding: “And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall renew the waste cities, the desolations of many generations” (Yishayahu 61:4).
We are the people who rebuild ruins. And when, as the Gemara teaches, we get to heaven and G-d asks each of us, “Did you work for redemption?” we can each say, “Yes, I did” – with a full heart.
Adapted from Dr. Erica Brown’s In the Narrow Places: Daily Inspiration for the Three Weeks (Maggid, 2011).
Dr. Erica Brown serves as a Vice Provost at Yeshiva University and directs its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Her latest book is Morning Has Broken: Faith after October 7th.