T
he institution of the haftarah
— reading a passage from the
prophetic literature alongside the
Torah portion — is an ancient one, dating
back at least 2,000 years. Scholars are not
sure when, where and why it was instituted.
Some say that it began when
Antiochus IV’s attempt to
eliminate Jewish practice
in the second century
BCE sparked the revolt we
celebrate on Chanukah. At
that time, so the tradition
goes, public reading from
the Torah was forbidden.
So the Sages instituted that
we should read a prophetic passage whose
theme would remind people of the subject of
the weekly Torah portion.
Another view is that it was introduced
to protest the views of the Samaritans,
and later the Sadducees, who denied the
authority of the prophetic books except the
book of Joshua.
The existence of haftarot in the early
centuries CE is, however, well attested.
Early Christian texts, when relating to
Jewish practice, speak of “the Law and the
Prophets,
” implying that the Torah (Law)
and haftarah (Prophets) went hand-in-
hand and were read together. Many early
midrashim connect verses from the Torah
with those from the haftarah. So the pairing
is ancient.
Often the connection between the parshah
and the haftarah is straightforward and self-
explanatory. Sometimes, though, the choice
of prophetic passage is instructive, telling
us what the Sages understood as the key
message of the parshah.
Consider the case of Beshallach. At the
heart of the parshah is the story of the
division of the Red Sea and the passage of
the Israelites through the sea on dry land.
This is the greatest miracle in the Torah.
There is an obvious historical parallel. It
appears in the book of Joshua. The river
Jordan divided allowing the Israelites to
pass over on dry land: “The water from
upstream stopped flowing. It piled up
in a heap a great distance away … The
Priests who carried the ark of the covenant
of the Lord stopped in the middle of the
Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all
Israel passed by until the whole nation had
completed the crossing on dry ground.
”
(Josh. ch. 3).
This, seemingly, should have been the
obvious choice as haftarah. But it was not
chosen. Instead, the Sages chose the song of
Devorah from the book of Judges. This tells
us something exceptionally significant: that
tradition judged the most important event
in Beshallach to be not the division of the
sea but rather the song the Israelites sang
on that occasion: their collective song of
faith and joy.
This suggests strongly that the Torah is
not humanity’s book of God but God’s book of
humankind. Had the Torah been the book
of God, the focus would have been on the
Divine miracle. Instead, it is on the human
response to the miracle.
TWO VOICES IN HARMONY
So the choice of haftarah tells us much
about what the Sages took to be the
parshah’s main theme. But there are some
haftarot that are so strange that they
deserve to be called paradoxical, since their
message seems to challenge rather than
reinforce that of the parshah. One classic
example is the haftarah for the morning
of Yom Kippur, from the 58th chapter of
Isaiah, one of the most astonishing passages
in the prophetic literature:
“Is this the fast I have chosen — a day
when a man will oppress himself? … Is this
what you call a fast, ‘a day for the Lord’s
favor?’ No: this is the fast I choose. Loosen
the bindings of evil and break the slavery
chain. Those who were crushed, release
to freedom; shatter every yoke of slavery.
Break your bread for the starving and bring
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
RABBISACKS.ORG
Left- and
Right-Brain
Judaism
44 | MARCH 17 • 2022