Isaiah as flying birds / Ben Nun Joel and Leo Benjamin In the days of King Hezekiah (in 701 BC) Sennacherib attacked the cities of Judah. ??He destroyed dozens of cities in a revenge campaign against rebellious Judah. ??The inscription he left behind hints at the secret of Jerusalem's survival: "And as for Hezekiah the Jew [. ..] And I imprisoned him inside Jerusalem, the city of his kingdom, like a bird in a cage; I poured batteries on him, and I made the exit from the gate of his city an abomination to him." In front of the Assyrian king's fierce words stood one of the giants of the spirit of the Jewish people - Isaiah the prophet. Just like a prophetic answer to the fierce words of the king of Assyria, Isaiah said: "As birds fly so shall the garden "Armies against Jerusalem, destroy and save, pass over and escape." (Isaiah 1:5) The prophet Isaiah is seen by many as the prophet of world peace. A utopian who transcends the boundaries of political reality into the realms of a cosmic harmonious idea. As the prophet of peace, he became the most exemplary figure of all the prophets. Israel. And his apocalyptic vision was even engraved on the UN building thanks to the fifteen Hebrew words in the key sentence: "And beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks - Gentile shall not lift up sword against Gentile, neither shall they learn war any more." But Isaiah also has other faces. For decades he worked in Jerusalem in the political and social sphere for justice and charity, and fought to stop disastrous international moves. The purpose of this essay is to tell the story of Isaiah as a lively and stormy man, bold and outspoken, who did not feel any fear in front of kings and rulers and did not fear the rich of the people. Reading the prophecy from its historical-realistic context penetrates beyond the words and succeeds in seeing the deep picture and in it the dilemmas of the leaders against whom the prophet acted. When you understand these dilemmas and hear the prophet's voice within the living context of his work, you cannot escape the encounter with questions that peek into the space of our world here, in a Jewish and Israeli society that is being renewed in the land of the ancestors. From this also comes the hope of turning the reading of the book of Isaiah into an infrastructure for public discussion. Rabbi Dr. Yoel Ben Nun was one of the founders of the Mount Etzion yeshiva in Gush Etzion and is considered one of the creators of the Bible study revolution in the Hesder yeshiva and in the general public. One of the main principles of his method is to piece together the biblical story from all the allusions of the Bible as well as to relate it to the historical and realistic reality, ancient and new. Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Lau serves as rabbi in the Ramban community in Jerusalem and serves as a fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. In his books and classes, Rabbi Lau mediates Mekorot Jewish history and thought for the Israeli public His book on Jeremiah the prophet (published by Yediot Books) was a bestseller.
