A new vision of Isaiah’s prophecy

We read the Prophets in order to enlighten us, to lead us to find our spiritual path, to talk with God. The truth is that we all can speak with God if we want to. The question is, are we listening to what God wants from us? When we speak to God we usually ask for something instead of asking what we are giving, what we are doing for others, what we are doing to bring holiness into the world. This is the challenge of reading the Prophets.

Reading the Prophets is an encounter with someone who spoke with God and wrote about it. It is an encounter with those with a spiritual mission, an inspiration and a challenge. We read the Prophets because they had a vision and were dedicated to ethical monotheism: One God. And, that’s what we need in order to live a meaningful life. It is to create a place for ourselves for that which is holy and transcendent.

As Abraham Joshua Heschel writes: “Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God.”

Israel Rosenberg’s new translation and commentary on Isaiah shifts from the traditional focus on turbulent struggles of empires to conquer and destroy the Jewish state and calls for repentance to a Messianic “End Times” to explain how and why Israel was reestablished and its future. This gives the book a compelling perspective.

Using archaeology and Jewish sources, including the Talmud, Kabbalah and midrash, he shows that the rebirth of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is the fulfillment of a divine plan. Isaiah’s prophecy, therefore, is not just a narrative of the past and moral teaching, but something which can be observed today; for example, the ingathering of Jews, making the desert bloom, contributions to medical technology, and solutions for providing clean water for African countries.

He writes that the “key idea behind understanding Isaiah, and all the Hebrew prophets... (is that) if Hashem (God) has promised things to the nation of Israel and in His mercy has fulfilled His words, even in a partial way, then it makes sense to assume that all in due time, Hashem will continue the process and fulfill all that He has promised to the Jewish nation.”

1. Ingathering – the return of the Jews from exile to Zion.

2. The advent of the Messianic period – the transformation of the world when “the desert and the wilderness will rejoice over them (the returning exile), the wasteland will be delighted and will bloom like a sea lily.”

Rosenberg reminds us that the fulfillment of the Isaiah prophecy is redemption evident in the return of the Jewish people to their homeland.

 

As he writes: “The creation of the State of Israel has provided a platform for the Jewish nation to reach its true potential as described by the Hebrew prophets.” As Isaiah prophesied, Israel has become “a light unto the nations.” What follows is my interview with Rosenberg about his book:

My target audience is two fold:

a. Christian Zionists

b. English-speaking American Jews who are interested in Judaism.

I would like them to have a better understanding of what the Prophet Isaiah is saying to us today, in our generation.

My entire approach to translating the book is new. My working assumption is that the Prophet Isaiah understood that one day, the Nation of Israel would return to speaking Hebrew. Therefore he pitched his words to make sense in our modern-day spoken Hebrew. I have translated his words as if he were using them to communicate what they mean in today’s modern, resuscitated language.

Isaiah was a certified Prophet. Jewish tradition holds that he was given visions whose meaning would have a direct relationship to what is happening in our own times. Isaiah is very clear about the return of the Nation of Israel to the Land of Israel; of the conversion of the Land from desolate wasteland to fertile and lush orchards and fields; and of the abandoned ruined cities restored to bustling metropolises filled with people.

Actually, it is not Isaiah 63, but Isaiah 53 that Christians quote in favor of their belief that the man known as Jesus who came from Nazareth was the messiah. I deal with this claim in my book by pointing out that from a linguistic and contextual perspective, normative Jewish tradition understands that the subject of Chapter 53 of the Book of Isaiah is not an individual, but the Nation of Israel itself.

But my book is not designed as an argument with anyone. My goal is to present clearly what Jewish tradition teaches about our own Hebrew prophet and his famous biblical book.

I discuss the Rambam, as well as other great Jewish scholars, in several places throughout the book.

My book largely speaks to the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words in our own times.

I hold that Isaiah was not writing for his generation alone, but for all generations, including those that will be alive at the time of the arrival of the true Mashiach (Messiah). I address this directly in my introduction and throughout the book.

As for our generation specifically – all one needs to do is tune in to the daily news to see that the words that Isaiah received through prophecy are being fulfilled in our own times. And the logic is very simple: if Hashem (God) promised certain things – such as the return of the Jews to a flourishing, no longer abandoned Land of Israel – that have actually taken place in the past 250 years, it is simple and healthy to assume that the other things Hashem has promised, but have not yet happened, will also come to fruition; all in due time.

May we live and be well to witness the wonderful things that Hashem has promised through prophets like Isaiah in the days and years ahead.