Torah Reading -Tzav. Leviticus 6-8; Haftorah is Jeremiah 7:21-8:3; 9:22-23
By Irv Jacobs, M.D.
LA JOLLA, California — This is a short, mainly prose, contrived stitching together of Jeremiah passages. They were selected by later rabbis as an example of a tirade against the nation of Judah’s corruption shortly before its downfall by Babylon (586 BCE).
I use the 2019 landmark translation of Professor Robert Alter of the University of California at Berkeley.
Jeremiah was accomplished as a poet, but for reasons not obvious, the rabbis included only twelve of his poetic lines in this Haftorah. This is despite the fact that 8:4-23 which immediately follows the above first component of the Haftorah, is a lengthy and effective poem that demonstrates this talent.
Jeremiah, I remind you, was disliked by the Judah-eans and their King Zedekiah. He was imprisoned twice in Judea. When Judah fell, he was forced by remnants of the Israelites to escape into exile in Egypt. His fate thereafter is unrecorded. [1]
The Judah-ean ‘elite’ meanwhile, following a brief second revolt, were taken into exile to Babylon. King Zedekiah, blinded, went to Babylon, and Judah was reduced to a province of Babylon. [2]
The connection to the Torah reading is that both Tzav and these passages refer to burnt sacrificial offerings (commonly present as well in numerous other prophets’ writings). [3]
The Haftorah opens with a tirade against simple burnt offerings, but:
Speaking for God:
“Heed my voice and I will be your God and you shall be a people for me…But they did not heed…in the willfulness of their evil heart…went backward…from the day…your fathers came out of the land of Egypt…I sent you all…the prophets,,,but (you) did not heed me…and…did more evil…
Here follows four lines of retained Jeremiah’s poetry:
“Shear your locks [4] and find them away,
and raise a lament on the bare heights,
for the Lord has rejected and abandoned
the stock [5] that called forth His fury.”
The prose goes on to a specific accusation:
”…they have placed their foul things in the house [6] upon which My name was called…built…in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, [7] to burn their sons and daughters in fire…And the carcasses of this people [8] shall be food for the fowl…and…beasts of the earth…And I will put an end in the towns of Judah…to the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride…”
Now, Jeremiah really gets earthy and nasty:
“…said the Lord, they shall take out from their graves the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its nobles…and…prophets. [9] And they shall spread them out before the sun…They shall not be gathered in nor shall they be buried. Manure on the face of the soil they shall be. And death shall be preferable to life for all the remaining from this evil clan…said the Lord…”
(For some reason, the rabbis chose not to include any of the twenty following dramatic actual verses of poetry, which consist of strong poetic images.)
The Haftorah now skips to 9:22-23 for the required upbeat ending, in poetry:
… Thus said the Lord,
“…Let the wise man not boast of his wisdom,
nor the warrior boast of his might.
Let the rich man not boast of his riches.
But in this may he who boasts boast:
understanding and knowing Me,
for I am the Lord doing kindness,
justice and righteousness in the land,
for in these I delight, saith the Lord.”
By skipping from verse 8:3 to to 9:22, it is clear the rabbis, either for brevity or choice, interrupted and edited the flow of the prophet’s written passages. This violates Jeremiah’s dramatic message, turning it into something less, i.e. without his permission. The writer would scream at such editorial license, were he still alive.
I note also that the connection of this Haftorah to the tedious enumerations of the sacrifices in Tzav is scant and only tangential, since the gist of this Haftorah is about corruptive practices, which admittedly included ‘burning.’
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NOTES
[1] Jeremiah, Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman, B.A, Ph.D.,The Soncino Press, London, 1961, p. xiv
[2] Kings of Judah, Wikipedia, The Genealogy of the Kings of Ancient Israel and Judah
[3] Etz Hayim,The Jewish Publication Society, 2001, New York, p. 627
[4] abandonment of an Israelite hair style
[5] a metaphor
[6] idols, in the Jerusalem Temple
[7] hell
[8] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Prophets Vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2019, ‘a grim scene,’ p. 885
[9] Ibid. false prophets and leaders guilty of reprehensible practices. P. 885
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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.