Pinhas (Haftarot)

“The Words of Jeremiah”—Exile and Redemption as The Great Jewish Theme

From this point through Rosh Hashana, none of the haftarot bear any direct relation to the contents of the weekly Torah portion. Instead, we read a series of ten haftarot known, respectively, as telat depuranuta and sheva denehamata: “three of catastrophe” and “seven of comfort.” During the Sabbaths of the three weeks of mourning culminating in the fast of Tisha b’Av, commemorating the destruction of the two Temples, we read haftarot of rebuke and warning taken from the books of Jeremiah and the opening section of the Book of Isaiah. During the seven weeks following, there is a series of haftarot filled with messages of consolation, solace, and hope in the coming of redemption, all of them taken from the latter part of the Book of Isaiah (Chs. 40-66). The opening words of these latter haftarot are seen as representing an ongoing dialogue between God and the Jewish people (more on this in a later HY).

The custom first appears in the relatively early midrashic work, Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, an entire section of which is built around homilies on the texts of these haftarot. Hence, it dates back to at least the fifth century CE. It is also mentioned in the Tosafot to Megilla 31b, s.v. Rosh Hodesh Av, where the full custom is described as: “three of catastrophe; seven of comfort; and two of repentance” (tartei de-tiyuvta: this last refers to the haftarah “Seek the Lord where he is to be found,” read inter alia on the Fast of Gedaliah, and that for the Sabbath between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, that begins with the words Shuvah Yisrael, “Return O Israel,” from whence the name Shabbat Shuvah).

It is thus a very ancient custom, and of almost universal provenance. Among all the Jewish Diasporas, only the Italian Jews have a somewhat different custom for this period of the year: to wit, they read a special haftarah of rebuke only on the Sabbath immediately preceding Tisha b’Av, and only three of comfort (interestingly, among them too the latter outweighs the former); for other Torah portions read during this season, they have haftarah selections related to the contents of the parsha read. This fact also indicates the great antiquity of Minhag Roma, the special prayer rite of Italian Jewry, which is neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazic, and seems to date back to the days of the Jewish exile in the imperial city, which underwent a separate development from the rest of Jewry.

This practice is so familiar to synagogue-going Jews that we seldom stop to ask the obvious question: Why? What is the justification for the total suspension, for a significant part of the year—more than two and a half months—of the usual rule that the haftarah is me’eyn haparsha, based on the same subject matter as the Torah portion?

The answer is that the theme of these haftarot, that of Galut and Ge’ulah, of Exile and Redemption, might be described as The Great Jewish Theme. Perhaps the single essential, underlying axiom of Judaism—not one of the “principles of the faith,” but something in a way more important, experientially prior to the abstract theological axioms—is that the covenant between Israel and God is not simply an affirmation of “ethical monotheism,” a universal call to the pursuit of morality and justice, of God-consciousness. Rather, this covenant is acted out in history by a specific people, the Jews, whose collective life has been filled with difficulty. As the court tells every prospective proselyte: “Israel are pained, oppressed, swept up by troubles, driven mad, and undergo sufferings.” The historical path of Jewry is a long, complex, serpentine one. At times, it is not clear which comes first: the actual Jewish experience of exile, persecution and suffering, or the belief that History is the field in which God reveals His moral personality, rewarding faithfulness to the covenant and exacting a terrible price in suffering for waywardness.

In no season are these facts more keenly felt then in the period before and after Tisha b’Av. If the Three Weeks of Bein ha-Metzarim, “Between the Straits,” correspond to the actual historical period of the siege of Jerusalem, the authors of the Masorah felt it only right that “the measure of consolation be greater than that of catastrophe”; hence, they introduced seven weeks, through Rosh Hashana, devoted to readings of consolation and filled with the assurance that the beautiful days of the “love of your youth” would one day be restored as of old.

Re the omnipresence of this theme. This year, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, one of the most brilliant and fascinating figures of the contemporary Jewish world, delivered the pre-Ma’ariv sermon on the night of Shavuot at my local synagogue. Rather surprisingly, the leitmotif around which he chose to construct his sermon was neither the overpowering majesty at Sinai, when all the forces of nature announced God’s Kingship, nor the basic mitzvot of emunah, of knowledge of the Holy One which form the heart of the Torah. Rather, he spoke of the verse from Psalms, “for your sake are we killed all the day” (Ps 44:23). He discussed the commandment of Kiddush Hashem, the “Sanctification of the [Divine] Name” name through martyrdom, the highest form of devotion known to Jewish law. He developed the thesis that even a Jew utterly lacking in God-consciousness, even an atheist, insofar as he is killed because he is a Jew, in fact dies a martyr’s death. Thus, the countless myriads murdered in the crusades and pogroms and inquisitions and throughout the centuries, and in the Holocaust, sanctified God’s name. In an almost mystical way, the nations of the world instinctively vent their rage against God by killing Jews, as an almost ineluctable fact of history. Was the subtext of this sermon the covert feeling that, with the renewal since last fall of virulent anti-Israel violence, clothed in a language of religious hatred and rejection we thought had passed from the world, we are entering a renewed age of enmity of the Jew? That the age-old story of Sinat Yisrael, which Zionism had thought to bring to an end by becoming a normal “nation among the nations,” is still alive and kicking? That, under the guise of virulent anti-Zionism and supposedly humanitarian concern for the Palestinians, the Jew is still a proxy figure for the hatred of religion, of morality, of discipline and holiness and menschlichkeit—that is, ultimately, of Godliness, that he symbolizes?

The Words of Jeremiah

The haftarah read on the first of these three Shabbats, Jeremiah 1:1-2:3, consists of three main sections. The first section (vv. 4-10; i.e., following the introductory heading of the book, with its names and dates and identity of the reigning kings at the time these prophecies were uttered), is what is referred to by scholars as the “initiation” or “call” of the prophet. There are similar passages about Moses, Samuel and Isaiah, among others (compare Exod 3:1-4:17; 1 Sam 3; Isa 6). Typically, the prophet is reluctant to undertake his task; he is overwhelmed by the weightiness of the responsibility thrust upon him by God, and protests that he is a small, insignificant person. In this case, God comes to Jeremiah and, without introduction, informs him that he was predestined to be a prophet “while yet in his mother’s womb; nay, before he was even formed!” (v. 5). He then reassures Jeremiah, against his objection that he is “a youth who does not know how to speak,” that He will be with him and will place His words in his mouth. (Again, note Moses’ insistence at the burning bush that he is “heavy of speech and heavy of tongue,” Exod 4:10, and Isaiah’s protestation that he is a man of “unclean lips,“ Isa 6:5.) This section concludes, rather dramatically, with the declaration that Jeremiah has been set over “nations and principalities… to uproot and smash, to lose and destroy, to build and to plant” (v. 10). The prophetic word is thus not merely rhetoric, but a powerful instrument for shaping history and the destiny of nations.

The second section (vv. 11-19) contains two symbolic visions or parables. In the former Jeremiah is shown the branch of an almond tree and is told, by means of a clever play on words (shaked / shoked), that God “persists” or is “steadfast” in carrying out His word. In the second of these visions he is shown a boiling pot, tipped away from the north. A seething pot is a quite obvious symbol of approaching trouble and disaster (viz. Shakespeare’s “boil boil, toil and trouble”). It seems to me that it was mostly for this passage that this chapter was chosen as haftarah for this Sabbath: it is here that God explicitly states that He will call upon all the nations of the world to rise up and “sit at the gates of Jerusalem,” laying it siege and making ready to destroy it. The prophet’s task is to warn the people, to call upon them to repent and change their ways, and to act as “a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze”—all powerful metaphors for his role as an immovable moral force presenting the authentic message of God.

The last three verses are a bittersweet reminder of the halcyon days of Israel’s youth, when she walked together with God in an ”unsown land”; their love and devotion were so great that they did not even think of betraying Him, notwithstanding the bleakness of their physical surroundings.

Elijah in the Desert: The Still Small Voice

On those relatively infrequent occasions when Parshat Pinhas does not fall during the “three weeks” (i.e., when Matot and Masei are read separately from one another), there is a “regular” haftarah, related to the Torah lesson. In this case, the chapter chosen is one from the life of the prophet Elijah (1 Kgs 18:46-19:21) who, like Pinhas, was “very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts.” Indeed, according to some midrashic traditions, Elijah is himself an avatar or manifestation of this great zealot of early Israelite history under a different name; neither of them (or the conflation of the two) actually dies, but they seem to live on forever.

This passage is best known for the scene in which Elijah goes down to the Sinai desert, presumably hoping to commune with God at the same place where He spoke to Moses. In the best-known verses from this scene, Elijah is shown a great and powerful wind, that “smashes mountains and breaks rocks”—but God is not in the wind; followed by an earthquake, and a fire—but God is in none of these. At last, “a still small voice” is heard—and of course it is there that God is present. This verse is often invoked by modern thinkers and theologians, as teaching the religious virtue of quietness, simplicity, etc.

But upon closer examination, the meaning of this passage is not quite so transparent. After all, at Sinai God appeared “with thunder and lightning”; elsewhere, too, tumultuous, dramatic manifestations of the forces of nature are perceived as manifestations of the Holy One (see Pss 29; 93; 18=1 Sam 22; Hab 3, and many other places). Moreover, in the immediately preceding chapter Elijah himself practices “pyrotechnics” in his confrontation with the priests of Baal at Mount Carmel, where God is specifically manifested in the fire which descended from heaven—and there are numerous similar cases involving his disciple Elisha. (Or was the latter somehow less refined, less subtle than his master? Certainly, there is also much simplicity and modesty in Elijah, as in the simple prayer he offers before that sacrifice; 18:36-37) What then is the point of this revelation specifically in the “still small voice”? (Interestingly, Rabbi Amnon of Magence, traditionally author of the famous High Holy Day piyyut, Unetaneh Tokef, indiscriminately juxtaposes “the blast of the great shofar” with “the still small voice,” providing cantors an opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of both fortissimo and pianissimo technique.)

But let us backtrack a little to the beginning of our chapter. Following the great confrontation with the priests of Baal, Ahab’s Philistine wife, Jezebel, threatens Elijah with death; alarmed, he flees for his life to the wilderness beyond Beer-sheva. He goes into the desert and sits under a broom tree, declaring that he wishes he were dead. What was the source of his deep despair? Surely it was not merely fear for his own personal security. He seems to have felt frustration and disappointment that he was unable to bring about a great religious turning among the people, or perhaps even in the heart of Ahab himself, who had seen the miracles he had wrought with God’s help. He falls asleep, and an angel awakens him, gives him a cake baked on hot stones and a jug of water and, with the strength of that food, he is able to go forty days and forty nights, as far as Mount Horeb, without eating. (His walking in the footsteps of Moses, who fasted for forty days and nights at that selfsame place, seems clear).

Elijah then enters a cave, falls asleep, and God asks him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?,” to which he replies, “I have been very zealous for God.” He describes the disastrous religious state of the people: “the Israelites have abandoned your covenant, and have destroyed your altars, and killed your prophets; and I alone am left, and they seek to kill me” (vv. 9-10). At this point God tells him to go outside and stand on the mountain, and passes by him the wind, the earthquake, the fire, and at last the still small voice. Elijah covers his face with his mantle (like Moses in the cleft of the rock?), stands outside the cave, and the identical exchange repeats itself: God asks, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” and Elijah answers as before, word for word (vv. 13-14).

What does Elijah learn from the still small voice? Perhaps this can be read almost as a Zen koan: as a passage to be reflected upon, in which there is no direct answer to the question, but whose sudden understanding brings insight. What God seems to be telling Elijah is that what is ultimately important is not numbers or “success” in the sense of a dramatic, mass conversion of the people; rather, the very fact of his being a prophet, faithfully conveying the divine message, standing in the gate to rebuke the people and point out their shortcoming—even if he remains totally alone in the world. The prophet is one who lives a paradox: he attempts to influence others, but knows in advance that he cannot anticipate “success” in any conventional sense, but must be satisfied with doing the right thing because it is right (compare Rambam, Hilkhot Teshuva, Ch. 10, where love of God is described as not being motivated by anything other than itself). If you will, he comes to understand that frustration is an integral “part of the job.”

In the third section (vv. 15-18), Elijah is given a new mission: to anoint various leaders: the king of Aram, the new king of Israel (Jehu ben Nimshi) to replace the wicked Ahab, and his own successor. Finally, we have the details of the appointment of Elisha as his successor. There is an interesting scene where Elisha asks leave to “kiss my parents goodbye,” to which Elijah takes umbrage. He seems to expect total devotion and commitment to the cause. (There is an interesting parallel or imitation of this scene in the New Testament, albeit in more extreme form, in Luke 9:61-62, a passage that I’ve always found extremely cruel and inhuman; cf. Matt 8:21-22; 10:37; 12:46-50 and parallels.)