There were major prophets, namely, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. There were minor prophets such as Micah, Amos, a bunch more including Habakkuk. Now what determines “major” vs. “minor” is really the size of the book, for were it another measurement then Micah and Amos would/should be considered
“Major.”
In the 1970s, a close friend of ours, Brother Ronald who is a Capuchin monk, began what he called the Ministry of Caring in our community. To say it grew like Topsy is an understatement. In any case, Brother Ronald told us that he was very sick and enumerated the treatment he would undergo. I wrote him a letter in which I said,
I’m a big fan of something spoken by Habakkuk. He surely isn’t among the most famous prophets
(I’ll bet over 90% of the Jewish community never even heard of him), but his point,
“The righteous one shall live by his/her faith,” is right on target.
What you believe is one thing…how that belief is manifest by your deeds is what’s Important.
Your deeds, Ronald, point to an incredibly strong faith.
I am confident that faith will be with you all along the way
as it’s been in your blessed mission to care for the downtrodden in our community.
There should be more Brother Ronalds in this world.
I may have referred to this prophet in a previous communication – sermon or article – but as I told our Confirmation students, “You can walk up and down Old Furnace Road proclaiming the Sh’ma over and over, but if you’re a rotten person, what does it prove?!” There was a man in the Jewish community in Wilmington who attended morning minyan in his shul on a daily basis. The man was a slum lord and was fined over and over yet did nothing to help his tenants; they lived in terrible conditions. He surely did not live by his supposed faith; or his faith was manifest in the walls of the synagogue but did not extend beyond those walls. Which one do you think was more important to Habakkuk and to God?
(Speaking of “major” and “minor” prophets, there’s the story of the professor at a rabbinical seminary who, on the Spring final exam would always ask the students, “Distinguish between the major and minor prophets,” and on the Fall final exam would always ask, “Distinguish between the Kings of Judah and Israel. “When he came back from a year’s long sabbatical, the Fall students were shocked and upset. They saw that the questions had been switched! Theirs had to do with the prophets. One student wrote in his test booklet, “Far be it from me, a humble student, a nothing in the eyes of the Lord, to distinguish between major and minor prophets, but just in case you’re interested, the kings of Judah were….and the kings of Israel were….”)