Solutions, Not Blame

The Talmud in Tractate Megillah relates: “Rabbi Eliezer says we do not read Ezekiel 16 publicly, for it recounts the undesirable behavior of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Someone once ascended the pulpit in Rabbi Eliezer’s presence and chose to read this chapter aloud. Rabbi Eliezer retorted, ‘Before you investigate the abominations of Jerusalem, go investigate your own mother!’ They made inquiries into the man’s birth and he was found to be illegitimate.”

In practice, we do not follow Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion. Why, then, did the Talmud record this whole episode in detail? To teach us that if someone goes out of his way to find fault with the Jewish People, the chances are that there’s something abominable in his own past!

G-d is interested in solutions, not blame. Ezekiel 16 is not about casting blame on the Jewish people, but about alerting them to how they must improve. So when the Haftorah is read in the synagogue, with a blessing recited before and after, then the purpose is only to transform the situation to good, so that even the Accusing Angel will be compelled to give his blessing.