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Share(יד) וַתֹּאמֶר צִיּוֹן עֲזָבַנִי ה' וַאדושם שְׁכֵחָנִי׃
(טו) הֲתִשְׁכַּח אִשָּׁה עוּלָהּ מֵרַחֵם בֶּן־בִּטְנָהּ גַּם־אֵלֶּה תִשְׁכַּחְנָה וְאָנֹכִי לֹא אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ׃
(טז) הֵן עַל־כַּפַּיִם חַקֹּתִיךְ חוֹמֹתַיִךְ נֶגְדִּי תָּמִיד׃
(יז) מִהֲרוּ בָּנָיִךְ מְהָרְסַיִךְ וּמַחֲרִיבַיִךְ מִמֵּךְ יֵצֵאוּ׃
(יח) שְׂאִי־סָבִיב עֵינַיִךְ וּרְאִי כֻּלָּם נִקְבְּצוּ בָאוּ־לָךְ חַי־אָנִי נְאֻם־ה' כִּי כֻלָּם כָּעֲדִי תִלְבָּשִׁי וּֽתְקַשְּׁרִים כַּכַּלָּה׃
(14) And Zion says, “God has abandoned me; my lord has forgotten me.”
(15) Could a woman forget her baby, lose compassion for the child of her belly? Even these they will forget, but I will not forget you.
(16) Behold I have traced you on my hands, your boundaries are always in my sight.
(17) Your children hurry forth. Your despoilers and your vandals flee from you.
(18) Lift your gaze and look around: see all who are gathered coming toward you! As I live—says God—you will wear them like ornaments, bedecked like a bride.
- What makes Zion claim that God has abandoned her and forgotten her?
- How do you relate this feeling-state to the weeks between Tishaa b'Av and Rosh Hashanah? What is Zion looking for?
- How do you relate to this feeling-state personally?
- Verse 15 seems to make a claim that many, if not all, mothers would find unthinkable. How do you make sense of it?
- God seems to say, I'm here. I'm still here. I could never abandon you. How does that sit with you?
- Some translations of verse 16 say, "Your walls are always in my sight." How does the use of the word boundaries (a non-literal translation) solve some of the confusions inherent in the verse?
- Reading verses 17 and 18 together: what kind of parenting model allows for the mother to wear her children as an ornament? What does this say about verse 15 that we might have missed?
Even these they will forget Even if these they will forget, I will not forget you.
- Rashi reads verse 15 as a kind of kal va'chomer argument. By positing a tacit "if" after the "even," he resolves the absurdity of of a mother forgetting her children. As absurd as it is for a mother to forget her children, it is even more absurd for God to forget the Israelites. Do you accept Rashi's solution to this verse?
- In the month of Elul (soon!) we will recite Psalm 27, which contains this verse:
If my father and my mother abandon me, God will gather me in.
- which covers some of the same ground as verse 15 in our haftarah. What resonates for you about this theme?
Could a woman, etc. As it says, "Behold it is not so. For could a woman forget her child, and harden her heart from compassion of the child of her womb?"
- The Metzudat David straight up argues with the biblical text. It cannot be that a woman could forget her child and harden her heart! What do we do when we cannot accept a biblical text as it is?
- Is the Metzudat David essentializing gender with this comment?
“Could a woman forget her baby?" The Holy Blessed One said: Have I forgotten the ram offerings and firstborn animals that you offered before Me in the desert? The Israelites replied before God: Ruler of the Universe, since there is no forgetfulness before the Throne of Your Glory, perhaps you will not forget my sin of the Golden Calf? God responded to Israel: “These too shall be forgotten.”
- This text has a complicated take on memory and forgetting. What does God remember and what does God forget?
- What do you wish God remembered or forgot?
- My mother always says, "You go into marriage with your eyes open. And then you close them a little." Is this what the Gemara imagines God is doing?
- In the season preceding the High Holidays, how does it feel to imagine that there is no forgetting before the Throne of Glory? How can we live our lives if this is the case?
Tikva Frymer-Kensky
Macmillan 1992
The close interactive relationship between God and Israel needs to be expressed and understood through the use of images drawn from human existence. Traditional metaphors of shepherd and flock, master and servant, king and subject, all express aspects of the divine-human relationship. However these metaphors serve to emphasize the great gulf in power and wisdom between humans and their divine shepherd-master-king. The metaphor of God-as-parent, like the marital metaphor, emphasizes the emotional aspect of the commitment between the partners.
The metaphor of the Divine parent expresses God's love for Israel, God's expectations for it, and the responsibility that God feels for instructing Israel in correct behavior. [...] God as parent, no matter how loving, has a definite agenda and a mandate to instruct and punish the child, with the result that God's parental love frequently takes the form of strict demanding discipline, what we sometimes today call "tough love." (p. 162)
[I]n biblical Israel [...] God-the-father is also the highest power of the cosmos. In fact, God-the-parent is the entire divine realm. The father-god is also the mother-god; the personal god is also the cosmic power. The national, one, god is at the same ime governor of the cosmos. The protector of the nation is also its teacher: the same god loves the nation and acts to render accountable, protect, and redeem Israel and the children of Israel. (p. 165)
- What is the role of the God-as-parent metaphor in your theology?
- When you imagine God as a parent, how much does gender matter to you?
- In the coming weeks, we will read in Haazinu
You have forgotten the rock of your birth, which labored to bring you forth
- which again imagines God in more feminine way, and deals with forgetting. Is it any more plausible that a child could forget their mother? Why is the Torah playing in this particular metaphor?
