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 

