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Haftarah Parshat Vayetze
(Hosea 12:13-14:10)
November 16, 2002
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This study piece is offered as a service of the United Synagogue
Conservative Yeshiva. It is prepared by Rabbi Mordechai Silverstein, senior
lecturer in Talmud and Midrash at the Conservative Yeshiva.
He is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
e mail:sf_silverstein@bezeqint.net
Historically speaking, this week’s haftarah is a ringing
indictment of the loyalty of the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel
to God. Hosea chides the people for turning their backs on God, whose providence
and care for their forefather Jacob and for the entire nation during their
desert sojourn made their existence possible. The people instead spurned
God, the Source of their blessings, in order to curry the favor of their
neighbors. This not unfamiliar phenomenon led to disaster, leaving the
people of Israel estranged from God. Near the end of the haftarah, the
tenor of Hosea’s message changes. He urged the people to repent with a
formula which now lends its name to the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur: “Shuva Yisrael - Return O Israel, unto the Lord your God, for
you have stumbled in your iniquity” (Hosea 14:2). This call to reprentance
is preceded, however, by a verse which foreshadows in a horrifically vivid
way the fate of the Northern Kingdom of Israel: “Samaria shall bear her
guilt for she has rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword,
their infants shall be dashed in pieces and their women with child shall
be ripped up.” (verse 1)
The pshat or plain meaning of the juxtaposition of these
two verses serves as a warning to the Northern Kingdom of Israel to avoid
the fate which awaits them if they continue their disloyalty to God. Rashi
contends that this message was not meant for the Northern Kingdom but rather
was a message for the people of the Southern Kingdom - Judah - after the
Northern Kingdom had already been destroyed. Rashi’s interpretation is
based on the following midrash: “A parable. To what can the juxtaposition
of these two verses be compared? It can be compared to a country which
has rebelled against its king. The king sent one of his military commanders
to destroy the city. The commander was a wise and calm fellow. He said
to the people: ‘Take a few days to make amends with the king or else I
will be forced to do to you what I did to this country and that country.
This is why the verse about Samaria precedes the verse about repentance”
(adapted from Sifre Parshat Balak Piska 131)
This parable makes us aware of the importance of what
experience and history have to teach us. Rashi transformed this prophecy
from a warning to the people of Samaria about their own fate into a
message to the people of Judah about their fate in order to provide them
with an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the people of the
Northern Kingdom. Jewish religiosity and acumen require no less from us
in our relationship to the past.
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