Shemot (Exodus 1-6:1) Haftorah is Isaiah 27:6-28:13, 29: 22-23
LA JOLLA, California — By way of introduction, I finished last week a year’s worth of Torah parashot, using my ‘original’ technique of (a) selection of passages in each parasha that catch my eye, (b) search of ancient non-Hebrew sources for similarities to such passages, via the internet, and (c) thus determine whether such Hebrew passage(s) was/were original or borrowed/shared.
For 2021, I plan to explore Haftorah passages, first to explain each’s connection to its aforementioned Torah parasha, then to shed light on its message and artfulness.
By way of background, the Haftorat are poetic excerpts from the Nevi’im, or Prophets section of the canonized Hebrew Bible. They flow with plentiful devices, e.g. dramatic active imageries, metaphors, similes, onomatopoeias, and castigations. These alternate synagogue readings were necessitated in Greek and Roman-control times, since both prohibited the ‘rebellious’ Jews from doing actual Torah (troublesome) parasha readings. Accordingly rabbis looked for textual connections (sometimes flimsy) between the prohibited Torah readings and the passages selected for Haftorat. A mandated rule was that, however negative the main message of the passages selected, each Haftorah had to end on a positive note.
By the time mighty Rome declined, the Haftorat were so well established that the rabbis continued to incorporate them into Shabbat services, now to follow the restored Torah readings.
This week’s Haftorah comes from the prophet Isaiah.
Here is important background on the writings attributed to Isaiah. Modern scholars easily detect that they refer to events in at least three widely separated chronological times. This leads to the conclusion that the package called the Book of Isaiah had at least three major authors, and likely many more minor contributors. [1]
These three are called by modern scholars, respectively: Isaiah I (Chapters 1-39, c. 730-701 BCE), Isaiah II (Chapters 40-55, c. 586-539 BCE), and Isaiah III (Chapters 56-66, c. 5th Century BCE).
The connection in this week’s case is that the Torah’s Shemot parasha describes the frustrated beginnings of Moses’ efforts to ease and end the Hebrews’ enslavement under the new Pharaohs. These efforts, instigated by God, were at first optimistic, only too soon squashed by Pharaoh. The Haftorah similarly describes the Prophet’s frustration, now over both the Northern and Southern Hebrew Kingdoms’ widespread corrupt and drunken behaviors of the Israelites, and more notably their royal and priestly classes.
Examples:
Was he beaten as his beater has been?
Did he suffer such slaughter as his slayers?
Assailing them with fury unchained,
His (God’s) pitiless blast bore them off
On a day of gale.
Assuredly, by this alone
Shall Jacob’s sin be purged away;
This is the only price
For removing his guilt:
That he make all the altar stones
Like shattered blocks of chalk—
With no sacred post left standing, (2)
Nor any incense altar. (Isaiah 27: 7-9)
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Ah, the proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim (3)
Whose glorious beauty is but wilted flowers
On the heads of men bloated with rich food,
Who are overcome by wine!
Lo, my Lord has something strong and mighty,
Like a storm of hail,
A shower of pestilence.
Something like a storm of massive, torrential rain
Shall be hurled with force to the ground.
Trampled underfoot shall be
The proud crowns … of the drunkards of Ephraim…(Isaiah 28: 1-3)
*
Truly, as one who speaks to that people in a stammering jargon and an alien tongue is he who declares to them…to them the word of the Lord is:
Mutter upon mutter, (tsir l’tov tsir l’tov
Murmur upon murmur, (l’kov kov l’kov))
Now here, now there.” (Isaiah .28: 11-13=onomatopoeias)
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Here, the Haftorah editors arbitrarily skip to include final upbeat words:
Assuredly, thus said the Lord to the House of Jacob, Who redeemed Abraham:
No more shall Jacob be shamed,
No longer his face grow pale…
They shall hallow the Holy One of Jacob
And stand in awe of the God of Israel. (Ch. 29: 22-23)
*
I must observe that the rabbis who chose this combination of passages, which are not in full continuity with the Prophet’s text, have manipulated ‘his’ text to conclude something at least a little different from his original message.
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NOTES
[1] The Hebrew Bible, vol. 2, Prophets, Robert Alter, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, London, 2019
[2] for Canaanite worship
[3] the royalty and priestly class of the Northern Kingdom (Israel)
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Irv Jacobs is a retired medical doctor who delights in Torah analysis. He often delivers a drosh at Congregation Beth El in La Jolla, and at his chavurah.