Recently, my family in Israel organized a belated birthday holiday for me in the Lake District. They chose a time when we were allowed out of lockdown, booked the hotel and train, ordered me to enjoy myself - and most of all to 'send photos.'

This was the first time in over two years that I had travelled on public transport, and certainly the first that I had left my home town. But it all went without a hitch, and people were incredibly helpful both there and back.

I was looking forwards to this break – all previous memories of the Lake District were happy: the first time, despite freezing weather and lack of hotel heating, a chance meeting with a travel writer from the Jewish Chronicle kept us amused throughout.

The last visit to the Lake District had been with the American wife of the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, who had always wanted to compare the Lake District and the New York Catskills – the Lake District won, hands down, according to her.

Plus she was riveted by tales of Beatrix Potter, which I managed to summon from the deepest recesses of childhood memory, as we wandered around that children's author's habitat.

But this time, organized by my children and son-in-law, capped it all. First of all, the weather was perfect – not too hot, and it even rained on one day, which brought a certain refreshing quality to the atmosphere.

This time, it wasn't Beatrix Potter who enthralled, but possibly our most famous poet, William Wordsworth.

Luckily, another chance encounter led to a great deal of information about how William and his sister, Dorothy, managed to combine the composing of sublime poetry with tree-planting and walking – walking from one end of the Lake District to another, planting trees along their route, and writing down everything they saw and felt.

The climax of my stay was the short journey from Ambleside to Rydal Water. Suddenly, a grassy bank appeared, flagged by trees, and I knew that was the spot to swim. So, for the first time in my life, I swam in an English lake, and despite the presence of wild swans, it was both glorious and revitalizing.

Opposite the lake, up a steep incline, is Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth designed a garden, and also wrote his Daffodils poem. I took a photo of the garden, and this led to a deeper understanding of a phrase originally coined by that great American theologian and human rights campaigner, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (who, I am pleased to say, is making a comeback in both Jewish and Christian circles).

This phrase is: 'radical amazement'.

Why 'radical amazement'? Let's dissect both these words.

'Amazement', we understand, means wonder at something we don't quite understand, and which can also be overwhelming. 'Radical' means getting back to the roots of an issue, but is now most often used in the political or economic sphere.

The 1960s were a decade in which both the 'radical' and 'amazement' came to the fore, but usually bifurcated. 'Radical' represented politics or economics, and a great deal of this was pure Marxism. 'Amazement' was usually the 'wow' factor – the hippy lifestyles, the compulsory concentration on the positive and relegating of the not so nice, such that the nasty was repressed, and injustices left to fester, while, frankly, people spent much of their time in naval-gazing!

Bifurcated, this decade led to the '70s and especially the '80s, which were for many hard and brittle, and quite a few simply lost their way.

But in the late 18^th and early to mid 19^th centuries, what Wordsworth and other great poets realized is that seeing and wondering isn't enough. On the other hand, as he finally concluded, political revolution (he was originally a great supporter of the 1789 French Revolution) often ends in tears, with its leaders ending up emulating the worst traits of those they displace.

What is needed is a combination of the childlike (but not naïve) approach to the beauty of life, as epitomized by the natural splendor of the Lake District, combined and tempered by the radical care about others that encourages social action where necessary.

This is what Rabbi Heschel means by 'radical amazement'. Wordsworth also got to the heart of what this means. Not only did Wordsworth write some of the most sublime poetry in the English canon, but he also designed his garden at Rydal Mount. You can't design a garden without understanding what we now call 'ecology'. Wordsworth was 'green' before his time, but he regretted his youthful espousal of the French Revolution, which he saw had done so much harm, leading to totalitarian politics and an early manifestation of 'cancel culture'.

This week's Haftorah portion comes from the opening words of the prophet Jeremiah. These words are always read during the 'Three Weeks' of mourning for the Destruction of the two Temples, currently being commemorated by the Jewish community.

Like so many of Israel's leaders before him, Jeremiah didn't think he was up to the job of both warning and comforting the Jewish people, especially during their traumatic transportation to Babylon (the first of many such in Jewish history). Why should this be? In Jeremiah's case, he thought he was too young to take on the yoke of warning and comforting the Jewish people as they went into forced exile.

There is no doubt that Jeremiah was 'young' in every way. First, he stemmed from the youngest (and therefore 'least') of the twelve tribes, that of Benjamin, and secondly he actually was a mere 'youth' (na'ar in Hebrew), lacking in both knowledge and experience.

But G-d tells Jeremiah that He knew Jeremiah's potential even 'before I formed thee in the belly ... and before you came out of the womb, I set you apart and appointed you prophet to the nations.'

Let's stick with this image of Jeremiah as a mere youth at present. For, later, G-d will use the same terminology to describe the Children of Israel, the Jewish people, whom He had destined for great things. G-d tells Jeremiah to remind His people that:

'I remember in your favour the loving faithfulness of your youth, the love of your betrothal [to Me], when you followed Me into the wilderness, into a Land that was not yet sown.'

G-d then continues via Jeremiah: 'Israel is set apart for the Lord, the first-fruits of the harvest.'

Or as the 1^st-century Greek Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexander, interprets, 'Israel, the Jewish people, are the first-fruits of humanity, sacred to G-d.'

The mention of 'first-fruits' implies that G-d expects a later harvest. This means that although Israel is the first people whom He chose, G-d looks to the ingathering of all other peoples too, who in the fullness of time would also come to acknowledge Him. This is why Jeremiah is described as the 'prophet to the nations.'

I believe that William Wordsworth had G-d's words to Jeremiah in mind, when he composed one of his two most beloved poems, popularly known as 'The Rainbow Poem'.For the poem contains the famous line:

'The child is father of the man.'

And this phrase may help us to understand the Heschelian phrase: 'radical amazement'.

It seems to me that what Wordsworth and Heschel grasped is that if we are able in maturity to retain and even develop our childhood curiosity and openness to wonder, then we will become more effective in our contributions to our families and communities, and these small contributions in turn will have a ripple effect on the wider world. And this is also what G-d was imparting to Jeremiah.

As Rabbi Heschel said: 'The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of G-d and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history or nature.'

And this is what G-d tells the young Jewish people through their youthful charge - the prophet Jeremiah.

To be truly radical, keep hold of your sense of wonder. But don't let your sense of wonder completely overwhelm you – keep your wits about you. Life is precious, and time is limited. So let's all make the most of our limited life here on earth and do our best.

Dr Irene Lancaster is a Jewish academic, author and translator who has established university courses on Jewish history, Jewish studies and the Hebrew Bible. She trained as a teacher in modern Languages and Religious Education.