LESSON 41: Learn Nevi’im

It is incredible how unimportant Nevi’im — the Prophets — has become over the generations. We’re not talking about Mishlei, or Koheles, which, though they may have been written with Ruach HaKodesh, are not prophecy. We’re talking about Nevi’im, which is completely prophecy, the word of God delivered to man through confirmed prophets.
Yet, so few people learn it today, as if what it has to say only applied to past generations. People learn Chumash, because that is the source of the mitzvos. We learn gemora, because that is how we understand the correct way to perform the mitzvos in all their glorious detail. We learn the Rishonim and Acharonim, to make sure that we learned the gemora correctly, and to advance our own learning skills. And, we have probably added some mussar and hashkofah, just to round out our learning program.
But no Navi, or very little of it, which is really remarkable when you consider that their prophecies, written down about two millennia ago, are for us. We could not merit to have prophecy in our time, so God did the next best thing: He had the prophets of their time speak about our time, so that we could benefit from prophecy even though we don’t have prophets.
True, some of the prophecies are quite frightening. However, whatever hasn’t happened can still be avoided, but only if we know what to avoid. God gave us these prophecies so that we can recognize the meaning of what might otherwise be confusing events, allowing us to better respond to the spiritual needs of the moment, specifically to avoid disaster.
Learning Navi is like putting on glasses to enhance one’s vision. A person with poor vision can often make things out, but not clearly. He can, somewhat, guess what he is looking at, but he can’t see any pertinent details. As a result, he can be mistaken about what he thinks he sees. Or, worse, he may not see it at all, which can certainly be dangerous.
Lots of events are occurring today, and it is hard to tell how significant they are, at least in terms of the “big picture” of Jewish history. One day, it will all be clear. In the future, looking back on today, the people living at that time will be able to see what were turning points in our time, and were not. However, that doesn’t help those of us living through these crucial times.
Learning Nevi’im does. The more one learns Navi, the more one can look at current history with a discerning eye, and make decisions that can actually mean life-or-death. God gave us Nevi’im so that we could see the events of our time in the proper Torah and historical context, so why disregard that gift? Why ignore such an advantage?
Yearning for redemption depends upon it.

Friday, February 15, 2008