Beha'alotkha (Haftarot)

“Sing and Rejoice o Daughter of Zion”

The haftarah read this week, also read for the Shabbat of Hanukkah, is taken from the Book of Zechariah, 2:14-4:7—one of the last three of the biblical prophets. Superficially, this chapter was chosen for both occasions because of the vision of a pure golden menorah in the final section (4:2-7). However, on a deeper level, it relates to the situation of de facto national and religious renascence celebrated by Hanukkah. Zechariah, Haggai and Malachi, the threesome who represented “the end of prophesy,” addressed themselves to the small group of people who returned to the homeland following the Babylonian exile, the generation of the Return to Zion, ca. 516 BCE. This Return included the restoration of the monarchy and of priesthood, mentioned here by Zechariah. It is true that the story of the Hasmoneans, commemorated by Hanukkah, did not involve immigration or return from geographical exile; nevertheless, the situation prevailing under the Seleucid overlords, in which there was neither national autonomy nor the freedom to carry out either Temple worship or other aspects of the Torah, must have felt very much like a form of exile on ones own soil.

The central chapter describes Joshua, the high priest, as a “brand plucked from the fire.” His filthy clothes are removed, and he is then dressed with rich apparel and a clean turban on his head (3:2-5; We can imagine in this role, say, a Hasidic Holocaust survivor, casting off his prison clothes, growing back his beard and payot, and once gain wearing “real” Shabbat clothes.)

There is some difficulty in the interpretation of the last four or five verses. The prophet is shown a golden menorah (candelabrum) with a great bowl of oil on its top, and with seven lamps; there are two olive trees on its two sides, dripping oil directly into the bowl continuously. The prophet is asked by the angel if he knows what these are, and receives the rather cryptic answer: “not by power and not by force, but by my Spirit, says the Lord” (4:6). But further on, after the point at which our haftarah ends, the angel gives a fuller answer: the seven lamps are the “eyes of the Lord,“ which look throughout the whole earth, and the two olive trees are the “two anointed ones who stand by the Lord” (4:14)—that is, Joshua and Zerubbabel, the priesthood and monarchy, symbols of the sacred and the temporal realm, which here enjoy equal and balanced status.