Chapter 5 of Yirmiyahu opens with a piercing call: go and search Jerusalem for a single upright person, and if you find one - I will forgive her. The chapter portrays a city where injustice has taken over the streets, where swearing by the Name of Hashem itself has become a tool of deceit, and where even blows and suffering no longer have any effect. We will follow the order of the verses, guided by the explanations of the Radak and the Malbim.
שׁוֹטְטוּ בְּחוּצוֹת יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם וּרְאוּ־נָא וּדְעוּ וּבַקְשׁוּ בִרְחוֹבוֹתֶיהָ אִם־תִּמְצְאוּ אִישׁ אִם־יֵשׁ עֹשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט מְבַקֵּשׁ אֱמוּנָה וְאֶסְלַח לָהּ׃ - Roam through the streets of Jerusalem, look now and know, and search in its broad plazas, if you can find a man, if there is one who executes justice, who seeks truth, and I will pardon her.
"Roam" - search and seek; look now and know, whether there is anyone who executes justice and seeks truth. The phrasing of the verse implies that in Jerusalem there were no people of justice at all, neither righteous nor pious individuals. On this, the Radak asks: How can this be? King David states in Tehillim, "They have given the dead bodies of Your servants as food for the birds of the heavens, the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth" - which indicates that there were indeed pious people and servants of Hashem in Jerusalem!
The Radak cites one answer in the name of his father: The prophet is speaking specifically about the outdoor streets and the open plazas. The wicked had taken over the public domain, and the practice of the pious was to shut themselves away from them and retreat into the inner chambers. They simply could not afford to walk about in the streets. And that itself is the indictment: go and see the terrible state of Jerusalem, where the wicked roam freely outside while the servants of Hashem fear stepping out into the street, because the wicked seek their lives. There are places in the world where decent people do not leave their homes at night, because someone who ventures out at night has little chance of returning safely. So it was in Jerusalem: there were righteous people, there were pious people, but they could not walk through the streets on account of the wicked among them.
The Radak brings an additional explanation in the name of our Sages: The verse in Tehillim is actually speaking about the wicked, and yet the verse still refers to them as "Your pious ones" and "Your servants." How so? Because they were liable to death, and the moment they died, atonement was granted to them - their death served as their atonement, and from that moment onward they are called pious.
From here we find an explanation for why we refer to the victims of the Holocaust as "the holy martyrs of the Holocaust" (Kedoshei HaShoah) and describe them as righteous and pious. Seemingly, one might ask: Many of them had abandoned the faith of their fathers, many had assimilated among the gentiles, and the Nazis, may their names be blotted out, hunted down even the third and fourth generations to send them to the camps - can it really be that all of them were holy? Indeed, yes. Once they died, they are all holy, for they received their judgment. Even one who had been wicked, by virtue of being killed and undergoing that judgment, attained atonement through death. This is why King David can refer to them as "the flesh of Your pious ones" and "the dead bodies of Your servants" - they achieve the status of pious individuals and servants of Hashem once they have been stricken and suffered for their sins.
What is meant by "if you can find a man"? Here, "man" does not mean an ordinary person, but a good man, a great man, in the sense of "Are you not a man?" - an expression of praise for someone of stature. Go and see if you can find a man of stature, if there is anyone who executes justice.
The Malbim explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, is saying, as it were: Do not wonder at the great calamity I have brought upon Jerusalem - roam through the streets of Jerusalem and see for yourselves. "The street" (chutz) refers to the area alongside the houses, while "the plaza" (rechov) refers to the marketplace. Not only will you fail to find a man in the narrow streets, but even in the broad plazas, in the marketplaces where crowds gather - even there you will not find anyone who executes justice. The streets and plazas are always full of people, yet none among them executes justice.
The Malbim is troubled by the repetitive phrasing: "If you can find a man, if there is one who executes justice." It would have been sufficient to say, "if you can find a man who executes justice," or "if you can find one who executes justice, who seeks faithfulness." Why the repetition?
The Malbim offers an innovative explanation: it is as if the verse said, "if you can find a man at the time when there is one who executes justice and seeks faithfulness." In other words, there were judges and magistrates, and they would go out into the streets. And what happened when they went out? Instantly, all the wicked, all those who acted against the Torah and Halachah, would vanish into thin air, because each one knew he would be the first to be caught. According to this, the meaning of the verse is: Go wander through the streets - do you see any person there while the one who executes justice is walking through the street? When the seeker of faithfulness - the one whose role is to punish those who stray from the path, who demands truth and integrity - walks down the street, suddenly there is not a soul in sight. Everyone has vanished.
The situation was so dire that almost everyone was wicked. As soon as an officer of the law went out - in modern terms, the moment the police appear on the street - the street empties and everyone retreats indoors. This is similar to the vegetable markets in our land, such as Machane Yehuda and the like: someone only has to yell "tax investigators!" and in a split second all the stalls are deserted. You can walk through the entire market and find no one. They take the cash box with them, naturally, but the produce remains; passersby look around wondering where the shopkeeper went, and suddenly everyone has "taken ill." So too here: the moment the judge steps out and shows his face in the street, instantly not a soul remains. This demonstrates the terrible depth of corruption: if a single law enforcement officer merely appeared, everyone vanished.
The Malbim examines the sequence of words. Usually, the order is "know and see," since knowledge is often abstract whereas sight is clear - I saw it with my own eyes. Here, however, the order is reversed: first "see" and then "know." The Malbim explains: He tells them to see, or at least to know based on reports from others. That is: I want you to see it yourselves, as it is so blatant; and if you do not manage to see it, others will tell you. Either way, you will know that the matter is plain and evident to all.
And what does the word "and search" (uvakshu) add? The Malbim says: If even through this you do not find it, go search and investigate, and then you will see how pervasive the situation is. He brings proof from Sefer Shmuel I, from the words of Shaul concerning David: first, "Know and see his place," and later, "See and know all the hiding places where he conceals himself." What is the difference? At first, he commands them not to rely merely on rumors and reports - "know and see": once they inform you, go and see his place with your own eyes, and then come and tell me. For Shaul had already set out in vain many times while David had vanished in the interim. Afterwards, through seeing, you will already be able to deduce - "see and know all the hiding places": based on what you have seen, calculate and assess where he might be hiding, which is an intellectual deduction.
וְאִם חַי־יְהֹוָה יֹאמֵרוּ לָכֵן לַשֶּׁקֶר יִשָּׁבֵעוּ׃ - And though they say, "As Hashem lives," surely they swear falsely.
After the prophet describes the situation - there is no one who executes justice, no one who seeks faithfulness - he adds: And if you nevertheless hear them say "As Hashem lives" and swear by the name of Hashem, know that they are swearing falsely. The Radak explains: Most of the time they swear by foreign gods, by idolatry, as stated later in the chapter: "and swore by that which is no god." If you ever do hear them swearing by the name of Hashem, it is a sure sign of a lie. This is similar to Yosef, who, when he wished to tell his brothers that they would not leave, swore to them, "By the life of Pharaoh." It is like a person who constantly swears, "I swear by my mother-in-law" - when there is no intention of keeping an oath, one specifically swears by Hashem. Ordinarily they swear by idols; by Hashem's Name they swear only falsely.
The Malbim adds: Even if you occasionally hear them swearing by Hashem's Name in the heat of a dispute with their peers, and you might think, "Behold, here are men of truth, people with Hashem's Name on their lips" - do not take this as proof. On the surface it appears consistent with the Torah's laws of oaths, but the truth is the exact opposite: they wish to project an image of upright, righteous men, and therefore swear by Hashem's Name, but this itself is a sign that one is defrauding his fellow through a false oath. Hence there is no integrity - no faith should be placed in his words, for once you see him trying to project the image of a man of truth, know that his word is false.
יְהֹוָה עֵינֶיךָ הֲלוֹא לֶאֱמוּנָה הִכִּיתָה אֹתָם וְלֹא־חָלוּ כִּלִּיתָם מֵאֲנוּ קַחַת מוּסָר חִזְּקוּ פְנֵיהֶם מִסֶּלַע מֵאֲנוּ לָשׁוּב׃ - Hashem, do Your eyes not look for faith? You struck them, but they felt no pain; You consumed them, but they refused to accept discipline. They made their faces harder than rock; they refused to return.
Radak explains that the prophet is astonished: "Hashem, do Your eyes not look for faith?" - Your Providence in the world is for a constructive purpose, to bring about good and not something futile. If so, how can it be that here Your Providence achieved nothing? What was His Providence over them? "You struck them, but they felt no pain" - they did not become sickened by the blow, they felt no ache or remorse, and they neither turned from their evil nor mended their ways. Usually, Divine Providence awakens faith - a person feels the hand of Hashem and sees His Providence over him with his own eyes; yet here, Providence made no impression at all.
This echoes what was said earlier: "In vain have I struck your children; they accepted no correction," as well as "Why should you be beaten anymore, that you continue to rebel?" It has been explained multiple times that the Holy One, blessed be He, strikes only when there is a purpose. If a son has strayed from the path and blows will no longer help him, there is no point in striking. In truth, striking is almost never effective, but when there is some constructive purpose, there is still justification for it; when there is no benefit, striking and afflicting become mere cruelty.
"You consumed them" - did they actually face total destruction? Radak explains: You brought them right to the brink of destruction. The Ten Tribes had already been exiled, and from Yehudah and Binyamin most of the people had already been carried off - how many of you are left? And yet, "they refused to accept discipline." When the prophets rebuke them - "they made their faces harder than rock": their faces are brazen and hard as stone; they are unmoved, unimpressed, unwilling to accept reproof, and feel no shame before the prophets; "they refused to return" to Hashem.
The Malbim explains that these are the words of the prophet, who turns back to Hashem and pleads before Him: Master of the Universe, the primary purpose of Your striking them is so that they will repent. If they do not repent, and do not even believe that the punishment they receive comes from You, it is fitting that You change the means. If the entire goal is to bring them to faith, and striking does not lead to faith, other means must be considered through which they might truly repent. For as a result of the blows, "they made their faces harder than rock; they refused to return."
וַאֲנִי אָמַרְתִּי אַךְ־דַּלִּים הֵם נוֹאֲלוּ כִּי לֹא יָדְעוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהֹוָה מִשְׁפַּט אֱלֹהֵיהֶם׃ - And I said: Surely they are poor, they have acted foolishly, for they do not know the way of Hashem, the judgment of their God.
The Malbim explains: I said that this does not stem from willful rebellion, but from a lack of knowledge. "They have acted foolishly" - from the word evil (fool), walking along a foolish path, "for they do not know the way of Hashem." A person who knows the way of Hashem understands immediately upon receiving blows that this is from Hashem; but someone who does not know the way of Hashem says when he is stricken, "What a terrible accident happened to me" - pure chance, bearing no connection to Hashem, blessed be He, and he fails to understand that it comes on account of his defiance.
Therefore, the first requirement is for them to recognize that they have sinned - that a person know that what he did was wrong. But they did not know Hashem at all; they did not know what is a mitzvah and what is a sin. In such a state, how can one repent when he is entirely unaware that he has sinned? He is like a tinok shenishba (a captive child raised without knowledge of Torah). Just as today, if you take a third or fourth-generation Jew somewhere in Russia and strike him, over what would he repent? He does not know what sin is. Over what - that he did not put on tefillin? He does not know what tefillin are, nor does he even know he is Jewish. With such a person, there is no purpose in rebuking him, since he does not know he has done anything wrong. If so, what is the point of afflicting them, "for they do not know the way of Hashem"?
Secondly, they must understand that the punishment is not coincidental, but comes through Providence from Hashem - and this is "the judgment of their God," which they do not know. This corresponds to what he said, "they are poor, they have acted foolishly": because they have acted foolishly and because they are impoverished in Torah, they do not know the way of Hashem. And because they are poor, they do not recognize the judgment of their God, believing instead that their poverty and weakness caused their misfortune: had we been stronger, mightier, we would have overcome everything. They do not comprehend that there is Someone afflicting them because they strayed from the path and rebelled against Hashem. Therefore, Yirmiyahu says before the Holy One, blessed be He: all this proves what I have said, that there is no point in afflicting and striking them, for rebuke and suffering do not bring them back to the path of truth - and the approach must be a different one.
Radak notes that in Jerusalem there were indeed great sages and individuals eminent in Torah; if so, why does the verse say "they acted foolishly" (as fools), and why does the Malbim explain that these were people who had no knowledge of the way of Hashem at all? Radak resolves this: those who remained after the initial exiles were the poorest of the land, the vinedressers and plowmen, complete amei ha'aretz (ignoramuses). For the craftsmen and the smiths (hecharash vehamasger) had already been exiled in the first wave - and they were the Torah scholars who were taken down to Babylon. Who remained behind? The dregs of the populace. An am ha'aretz, the commentators explain, is a person whose entire preoccupation is earthly; these were farmers. Even today, when people want to describe someone as less sophisticated, they might call him a "simple provincial"; and in their time, the gap was far wider, for the farmers lived far from the metropolis and had very meager knowledge. Consequently, when you speak to them of Torah and mitzvos, they do not understand what you are talking about at all - they lack understanding: "they do not know the way of Hashem, the judgment of their God."
The Malbim distinguishes between these two expressions. Wherever the Four-Letter Name of Hashem is used, it refers to general providence, the Holy One, blessed be He, directing His entire world. In contrast, when He attaches His Name specifically to us - "your God" - it refers to His individual providence over us, the way He guides us specifically. Therefore, concerning general providence, Hashem's governance of the world, it is said, "they do not know the way of Hashem"; and concerning individual providence and His direct influence upon us, it is said, "the judgment of their God" - this, too, they did not perceive.
We know that the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts punishment from us more than from the other nations. The other nations know nothing anyway, whereas regarding Israel it is said: "You alone have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you." The very fact that Hashem knows us and watches over us with close individual providence places us constantly in focus, such that if we stray, a strike comes immediately. This was Israel's reality in the wilderness: close providence at the highest level - the Clouds of Glory accompanying them, Moshe Rabbeinu with them, Aharon in their midst, the well traveling with them, manna falling from heaven every day. Yet precisely during that period, one finds the greatest plagues and blows. Why? Because when you are under close providence, any slight deviation immediately brings "and the fire of Hashem burned among them," a plague begins, and Aharon must stand between the dead and the living. Close providence demands strict justice whenever there is a deviation from the path. Yet here, they do not even know the way of Hashem in terms of general providence, and certainly they do not grasp His providence over us as the God of Israel - so what is the point of chastising them?
אֵלְכָה־לִּי אֶל־הַגְּדֹלִים וַאֲדַבְּרָה אוֹתָם כִּי הֵמָּה יָדְעוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהֹוָה מִשְׁפַּט אֱלֹהֵיהֶם אַךְ הֵמָּה יַחְדָּו שָׁבְרוּ עֹל נִתְּקוּ מוֹסֵרוֹת׃ - "I will go to the great men and speak with them, for they know the way of Hashem, the judgment of their God." But they together broke the yoke, tore off the bonds.
Who are the "great men"? The Radak explains: the prominent and the wealthy. They are not preoccupied with menial labor, they have the leisure to study Torah and acquire wisdom, and generally speaking, they are more moral people with knowledge of the Torah. Perhaps they know the way of Hashem and the judgment of their God, and perhaps positive results will emerge from the rebuke I offer them. But the prophet says: When I spoke with them, I saw that together they broke the yoke of the Torah. The first group did not know and did not understand; but these do know and understand, and with them it is a case of "they broke the yoke": one knows, one recognizes, but the yoke is heavy upon him and so he shatters it. "Tore off the bonds" - they severed the yoke and the restraints from upon themselves. And "together" means that they all rebelled as one.
The Malbim explains: "I will go to the great men," for they know both things - the way of Hashem and the judgment of their God. First, they know that the Holy One, blessed be He, directs the world; and second, they know that there is individual providence here, "the eyes of Hashem your God are always upon it," and the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over the people of Israel specifically, far more than over the nations. But here I see that they know their Master and intentionally rebel against Him - this is "they broke the yoke," a deliberate and willful rebellion.
These descriptions correspond to the two concepts: "the way of Hashem" is the Torah and the mitzvot, which rest like a yoke upon their neck - and they cast it off. "The judgment of their God" refers to the suffering and punishments: when a person casts off the way of Hashem and refuses to accept the mitzvot upon himself, Hashem brings judgment upon him, stemming from His being our God, Who leads and governs us specifically, for we are His children and His people. The verse compares this to "bonds": bonds are the ropes with which an ox is tied down to restrain it, and so to speak, the Holy One, blessed be He, sought to bind them with restraints and compel them to observe the Torah and mitzvot - yet they tore off the bonds. They paid no heed to rebuke, nor to punishment, nor to suffering, and they severed all of it from upon themselves.
עַל־כֵּן הִכָּם אַרְיֵה מִיַּעַר זְאֵב עֲרָבוֹת יְשָׁדְדֵם נָמֵר שֹׁקֵד עַל־עָרֵיהֶם כָּל־הַיּוֹצֵא מֵהֵנָּה יִטָּרֵף כִּי רַבּוּ פִּשְׁעֵיהֶם עָצְמוּ מְשֻׁבוֹתֵיהֶם׃ - Therefore a lion from the forest strikes them, a wolf of the deserts ravages them, a leopard watches over their cities; whoever goes out of them will be torn to pieces, for their transgressions are many, their backslidings are numerous.
Rashi explains: "A lion" - this is the kingdom of Babylonia; "a wolf of the deserts" - this is the kingdom of Media; "a leopard watching over their cities" - this is the kingdom of Assyria. And "a wolf of the deserts" Rashi explains as derived from the desert plains, a desert wolf that hastens to plunder them; or as one lying in ambush for them.
The Radak explains: Since they broke the yoke of the Torah, "a lion from the forest" strikes them - the prophet compares the enemy to a lion emerging from the forest to hunt prey. A lion possesses great might: it does not have to remain in the forest, but is capable of leaving its safe and sheltered habitat to tear its prey. In contrast, the wolf ventures out at evening time, which is one explanation of "a wolf of the deserts," and as the Malbim also explains in one of his interpretations: wolves come out at night, and their howls are heard at night. Wolves travel in packs, and they are less courageous than the lion, so they come only under cover of darkness. They lack the lion's boldness to emerge openly from the forest to fight; rather, they are fearful and come out only in the evening, when they feel safer.
The lion is a metaphor for the king, for just as the lion is the king of beasts, so will the king of Babylon come upon them; the wolf is a metaphor for the army; and the leopard for the army commanders. The prophet depicts how the king, his officers, and his army will come and strike Jerusalem. "A leopard watches" ("namer shoked") - from the language of diligence and watchfulness, one who exerts himself and persists in something: the leopard will watch diligently over their cities, giving them no rest, laying siege to them and persisting with great determination until he subdues them.
The Malbim explains: Since the sin stems from rebellion and not from foolishness - for he also tried speaking with the great men and saw that they "broke the yoke, tore off the bonds," which is outright rebellion - he therefore said that first a lion will come and strike, followed by "a wolf of the deserts," whose way is to devour carcasses: the lion deals the blow, and the wolf follows after the corpses and consumes what remains, which is the meaning of "shall spoil them" ("yeshodedem"). And the leopard, whose nature is to always linger near cities and ambush people - "watches over their cities."
And why does he mention three kinds of animals? The Malbim explains: The underlying meaning refers to the three times that Nevuchadnezzar arrived with his camp and devastated them.
"For their transgressions are many" - in terms of quantity; "their backslidings are increased" ("atzmu meshuvoteihem") - in terms of quality. A person can commit many minor sins, and on the other hand, can commit sins that are each inherently grave. A major sin in its own right, even if not repeated often, already warrants punishment. And here there is a double measure: on the one hand, "their transgressions are many" - the transgressions are numerous, which in itself is severe, for even if they are small, when multiplied they become very grave. As brought in the holy books, this is comparable to a single reed that can be broken easily, but when many reeds are joined together, what was once like a spider's web becomes like thick wagon ropes. And as Rabbeinu Yonah writes, even a minor sin, when a person repeats it over and over, becomes thick and weighty.
And should you say: but aren't these small sins and minor transgressions? To this the verse states, "their backslidings are increased" - in terms of quality, they are enormous ("atzumim"). There are two types of sins: there is one who sins out of physical desire, overcome by his yetzer - and this is not termed "atzmu," for he does not seek to rebel against Hashem, but rather his yetzer overpowered him. Do not misunderstand: he will certainly have to give an accounting for this as well, but it does not reach the severity of rebellion. Yet here we saw in the previous verse, "Yet they altogether broke the yoke, tore off the bonds" - he went to the great men, to those with available time who are expected to know Torah, and they too broke the yoke. This proves that their sins are immense in quality, a great and terrible transgression born of outright rebellion.
And what is the difference between a "transgression" (pesha) and a "backsliding" (meshuvah)? The Malbim explains: A pesha is a rebellion in action, whereas meshuvah is an inner, psychological state - a rebellious spirit (ruach shovav). That is to say, he rebels in his soul; in his thought and intellect, he opposes the command of Hashem. This is far more severe than an action-based transgression alone, for regarding an action-based transgression one could say, "What did he really do? He merely followed his desires"; but "meshuvah" signifies something rooted in the inner will - a genuine rebellion against Hashem.
Chapter 5 opens with a call to roam the streets of Jerusalem and seek even a single person who executes justice and seeks faith. The Radak resolves that although there were pious individuals, they refrained from going out into the street because of the wicked who held sway there; and according to our Sages, even the wicked were called "Your pious ones" once their death atoned for them. The Malbim innovates that the verse describes how it was enough for a man of justice to step out into the street for all the transgressors to vanish as though they never existed. The oath in Hashem's Name upon their lips is not a sign of reverence, but an instrument of falsehood and oppression. The prophet pleads before Hashem that the blows are of no avail - "You smote them, but they felt no pain" - and therefore the methods of rebuke should be changed. He initially attributes the sin to ignorance and poverty in Torah knowledge, that they lack understanding of the way of Hashem and general Providence, as well as the judgment of their God and individual Providence; yet when he went to the great men who knew better, he found that they broke the yoke and tore off the bonds - a deliberate rebellion. Therefore, the lion, the wolf, and the leopard come, corresponding to the three waves of destruction by Nevuchadnezzar, "for their transgressions are many" in quantity, and "their backslidings are increased" in quality - a sin that is not merely in action, but a rebellion of the inner will.