LOOKING INTO THE HAFTARAH

                The Jewish people began a cycle of weekly readings from the Sefer Torah or “Five Books of Moses” early in the Second Temple period of history.  A little more than a hundred years before the beginning of the Common Era (1), the Syrian-Greek king Antiochus IV, in an attempt to unify his territory, ordered the Jews to place a statue of the king of the Greek pantheon in their temple and outlawed public readings of the Torah.  Jews instead began reading selections from books of the Prophets that related to the theme of each week’s Torah lesson. Even after the Maccabean revolt ended the oppressive demands of Antiochus, Jews maintained the practice of reading a lesson from the Prophets after the Torah reading.  This reading is known as the Haftarah, meaning “conclusion.”  Each Haftarah contains an insight into how the sages of old understood the application of the Torah to daily life and the mission of the Prophets, which is to show how to experience Hashem’s (2) love for us through His holy Torah (3).

(1)    Common Era:  Jews prefer to use the abbreviations CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era) instead of their respective equivalents AD and BC which are based on Christian theology.

(2)    Hashem:  Hebrew for “The Name.”  Erasing any of the sacred Hebrew names for the Creator is considered an act of desecration in Judaism, and by convention we similarly avoid erasing translations of those names used in other languages, and use the word Hashem in their place.

(3)    Torah: The Hebrew word torah comes from the Hebrew word l’horot meaning “to show the way” or “to direct.” It can be used to signify the Sefer Torah, as well as the body of Jewish religious belief and practice. While it sometimes denotes “law,” the connotation is not at all the same as the Greek word nomos which signifies “order” and is the root of “astronomy” and “economics.”  The Torah is not the demand of an arbitrary tyrant, impersonal authority or vengeful overlord but the guidance of a loving Father.