Tisha b'Av (Haftarot)

“The harvest is past, the summer is over, and we are not saved”

As we mentioned earlier (Balak, re 17th Tamuz), Tisha b’Av morning has both its own unique Torah reading, and a special haftarah. The Torah reading, taken from Deut 4:25-40, anticipates a day when “you shall become old in the land” and the nation of Israel will do evil in God’s eyes—and when that occurs, as surely as day follows night, the punishment shall come. As the Rav eloquently explained in one of his Tisha b’Av teaching marathons, this section was selected because it contains a capsule summary of the central themes of this day—retribution, covenant, and the dynamics of Jewish history. It is also surely no accident that it is taken from the regular Torah portion for this week, Vaethanan. There is nevertheless a certain difficulty with this, as there is with the Torah reading for Minhah and for Shaharit of the other fast days (taken from the account of God’s forgiving the people after the sin of the Golden Calf): namely, why are these passages read, rather than the Torah portions dictated by Mishnah Megillah 3.7, the “blessings and curses” (presumably, this refers to Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28)? I have no answer at hand for this interesting question; I throw out the gauntlet to those curious for further research and thought.

The haftarah for Tisha b’Av is Jeremiah 8:13-9:23—a passage truly deserving of the epithet “jeremiad”—and begins with the words “I shall surely gather them in [i.e., make an end of them], saith the Lord.” Here, even more so than in the haftarah for Shabbat Hazon, which is also read in the melancholy chant of Lamentations, we find a description of the catastrophe as it happens.

We find the people sitting, waiting for disaster to strike. “There are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree... we have drunken gall” (vv. 13-14). The neighing of the enemy’s horses can already be heard. There is a mood of finality, of an entire era drawing to a close. “The harvest is past, the summer is over, and we are not saved… Would that I were made of tears, so I could weep day and night for the tragedy of my people” (vv. 20, 23).

But here, too, the dirge for the destruction of the people is mixed with rebuke (vv. 1-8): after all, this catastrophe could not have happened without some cause! We are thus told that they are all adulterers, treacherous men, liars. But perhaps worst of all, there is no solidarity or loyalty, no sense of community among the people: “Every brother is a scoundrel; every friend gossips behind the others back.” There is no truth, no honesty. “They speak peace but lay an ambush in their heart” (v. 7). Again, from 9:9 on, we again have the elegiac mode: “I will take up my weeping in the mountains, and my keening in the desert pastures…. Even the beasts of the field and the birds of the air have fled and are gone… Jerusalem and the cities of Judah will be transformed into a rubble heap, a dwelling of jackals.” And a bit later, a truly chilling verse “Call to the keening women and weep… for death has come up by or windows” (vv. 16 ff.).

And in the middle, a rhetorical question (v. 11): Does no one understand why this is happening? Because they have abandoned the Torah and followed their own arbitrary hearts and will. Finally, two concluding verses, 9:22-23, with an implicit call to follow the correct path: Let one not praise oneself for wisdom, courage, or wealth, but only for “understanding and knowing Me”—meaning, knowledge of God’s ways: doing loving-kindness, justice and righteousness.

Interestingly, these very same verses are appended to the end of the haftarah for Tzav, one of the other well-known passages that is stridently critical of preoccupation with ritual and sacrifices. (For a full discussion of the entire issue of the prophetic attitude to korbanot, see HY II: Tzav.) At the very hand of his Guide for the Perplexed (III.54), Maimonides interprets this verse, noting that the ultimate good desired of human beings is not “understanding Me”—i.e., cognitive and intellectual apprehension of metaphysics, which he so extols in many places—but “knowledge of His attributes”—that is, imitating and assimilating His ethical attributes in ones own everyday life.