Considering prophets in their time and in ours

What did the prophets say and why does it matter today? Rabbi Dr. Peter Rosenzweig, a clinical psychologist and former professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, provides some of the answers in his new two-volume series.

Rabbi Rosenzweig’s book, “What Did the Prophets Say?” (Targum Press), tackles lessons gleaned from all 48 biblical prophets and seven prophetesses. These books bring unique insight based on three years of classes taught to adult businesspeople, intellectuals, and professionals at the Bais Chaim Dovid Orthodox synagogue in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnwood. Many of the participants had limited backgrounds, which barred them from accessing the prophets’ lessons earlier in their lives. In the books, readers become virtual members of the class, as it incorporates the students’ questions, challenges and insights.

A child of Holocaust survivors and a new Israeli immigrant, Rabbi Rosenzweig uses the texts to springboard into a better understanding of the modern Jewish world. While he tells JNS.org that he was careful not to psychoanalyze the prophets, some-thing readers might expect he would do given his background, “being someone who is very involved in people’s emotional lives and struggles, it was important to me to see how that perspective would help us understand what people were like during the time of the nevi’im. What did people like Shmuel encounter in the society in which he was living?”

In his books, Rabbi Rosenzweig notes that there were very few people in Tanakh  who spoke to God on such an intimate and soulful level as King David. But then he also talks to the drama of the relationship between King David and Bathsheba.

“All of these aspects [of the prophets] are so rich with human conflict and there were tremendous riddles,” explains Rabbi Rosenzweig. “Take Yishayahu HaMelech (King Isaiah). He was literally raised on the ceiling of the Holy of Holies. How can a person like that be a great king on the one hand and then, at the end of his life, do some things about which the prophets are very critical?”