Toldot (Haftarah)

The haftarot we have dealt with thus far have either been narratives concerning various incidents from the ancient history of Israel under the reign of the kings of Judah and Israel, or prophecies of comfort and consolation taken from the latter part of the Book of Isaiah. This week’s haftarah consists of the opening section of the Book of Malachi (1:1-2:7)—the last of the Twelve “Minor Prophets” (so called only because of their size, not because of any lesser degree of importance)—written during the period of the ”Return to Zion” (ca. 530 BCE). It is the first haftarah in the annual cycle consisting of “prophecy” in the classical sense: that is, words of rebuke and moral exhortation to Israel.

The “argument” of the chapter consists of three main stages: the first stage (1:1-5), which is evidently the reason for its choice for this particular week, contrasts God’s love for Israel/Jacob with His hatred for Esau. The second stage (1:6-2:3), taking off from the exaggerated sense that “God will love us no matter what,” chastises Israel, and specifically the Levitic priests, for their slovenly, if not contemptuous, attitude towards the Divine service. The third stage (2:4-7), by contrast, presents an ideal vision of the function of the righteous priests: “For the lips of the priest shall speak knowledge, and Torah shall they seek from his lips, for he is an angel of the Lord of Hosts.”

Modern liberal Judaism has made much of the contrast between the “ritual” chapters of the Torah concerned with the details of the sacrificial system, and the prophetic books which are critical of such sacrifices, describing them as unnecessary and not really desired by God. Isaiah’s famous call: “Who has asked this of you, to trample my courts… I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly,” etc. (Isa 1:12ff.); or Jeremiah’s: “For I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offering and sacrifices on the day that I brought them out of Egypt“ (Jer 7:22 and ff.), come to mind. In a similar vein, the prophet Zechariah answers the seemingly straightforward halakhic query, “Shall we continue to weep and fast on the fifth month [i.e., Tisha b’Av] as we have done these many years” (7:3) with a lengthy discourse on the true moral purpose of fasting, only answering the question in 8:18-19.

Clearly, this element is present in the above passages, and the dialectic between priest and prophet, between the ceremonial and the ethical, is an important one. (See my citations of Richard Rubenstein, and his comments on these as differing modes of religiosity, which he also identifies with Protestant and Catholic, or “church” and “sect,” in HY to Ha’azinu-Yom Kippur.) But be that as it may, the present chapter does not outright condemn or reject the sacrificial system. Rather, it presents a more nuanced critique, combining two elements. One, the ethical—that people think they can compensate for moral corruption, theft, exploitation of their fellow man, etc., by performing rituals and bringing offerings. Second, that even their attitude toward the ritual itself is haphazard and sloppy, betraying an underlying contempt that is tantamount to an insult to God Himself, bringing to the altar animals that are blind, sick, lame, or otherwise blemished. To the contrary, religious acts must themselves be performed with an attitude of reverence and awe for the reality of God; with the knowledge that offering sacrifices on the altar is not just a game or a magical charm of some sort. In short, they think they can bring any old thing as a sacrifice, whereas (this is implied between the lines) they are careful to serve only the best meat at their own table or to offer as a gift to a powerful person (v. 8).

Today, when prayer has taken the place of sacrifice, one cannot avoid the thought: would any of us speak to our boss, to an important business client, to a prominent public official, not to speak of a head of state, in the off hand, rapid-fire, essentially inarticulate manner in which the vast majority of Jews daven most of the time?

An important verse, often overlooked, draws a comparison between Israel’s lax attitude to sacrificial worship and that of the other nations: “From the rising of the sun to its setting, My Name is great in the nations, and in every place incense is offered up to My Name, and a pure offering” (v. 11). This statement has far-reaching theological consequences: namely, that ultimately, even the pagan nations, in their supposedly idolatrous cults, also worship the true God. Beneath the garish, polytheistic, and at times even lewd symbolism of paganism, there lies the intent to serve one Creator of the Universe. Certainly, in what are often thought of as contemporary idolatrous religions—such as Hinduism—there is a ground concept of one supreme God or Reality underlying the numerous deities of the pantheon. In any event, their conceptions underwent a certain development over time; in the Hindu case, there is a profound contrast between their oldest scriptures, the Vedas, and the later philosophical tradition of the Upanishads. I do not know much about the so-called ”animistic” religions of central Africa, but would not be surprised if there, too, the totems and animal images and worship of the forces of nature serve as the external shell for an intuitive perception of the one force of Divine life flowing through all things.

All this must give us some pause. Perhaps we need a modified model for understanding non-monotheistic religions; rather than seeing them in terms of black and white, either monotheistic or pagan, there is a certain continuity: that these religions, even in pagan, polytheistic guise, contain a partial truth. In such an approach, the prohibitions of avodah zarah, including imagery, would be directed at Jews, who are called upon to have a purer, unsullied, concept of God, to arrive insofar as possible at the purest, most refined religious truth. (See my discussion of this issue in last year’s Hitzei Yehonatan to Yitro, especially as it bears on the issue of imagery. Maimonides is very strict and outspoken also with regard to incorrect theological concepts held by many Jews; later Maimunidean philosophers engaged in polemic with the Kabbalah for its concept of the sefirot as semi-independent entities within the Godhead, seeing this as a departure from the pristine concept if God’s unity—but this is a discussion in its own right.)