Haftarah for Mattot-Mas’ei
Jeremiah 2:4-28; 3:4; 4:1-2
Eitz Hayim 968; Hertz 724

Last week marked a turning point in the Jewish liturgical calendar.  Until then, each haftarah is selected to match the theme of the corresponding parashah, or in some cases just some parallel idea or action.  Starting a week ago, and continuing until the end of the Jewish year, the haftarot are selected to emphasize historical events in the Jewish calendar.  More specifically, today’s haftarah is the second of three Haftarot of Affliction (alternatively translated as Admonition or Rebuke or Reproof).  These three are chanted on the three shabbatot just before Tisha B’Av.  They are followed by seven Haftarot of Consolation that are sung on the seven shabbatot after Tisha B’Av.  (The calendar is designed so Tisha B’Av, the one truly sad day in the Jewish calendar, can never fall on Shabbat.)  In most Chumashim, the haftarah for Matot would be the first Haftarah of Affliction.  However, this year Matot and Mase, are combined, so the first Haftarah of Affliction was chanted last Saturday after Pinchas, and today we are reading the second Haftarah of Affliction.  

Where did this set of seven special haftarot come from; which sections of the prophets are selected for specific days; and how old is the practice of distinguishing them?  Those questions began to intrigue me as read over the material for today, and my d’var will tell some of what I learned – mainly on line as there is remarkably little about these haftarot in conventional sources such as Encyclopaedia Judaica.

Let’s start from the question of when.  The separation of these 10 Shabbatot goes back to the first couple of centuries of the common era, probably between the third and fifth centuries, at least in Israel.  This timing is suggested by the fact that there is no mention of these special haftarot in the Talmud, whereas they are explicitly listed in the Pesiqta de Rav Kahana, a homilitic midrash that is generally dated as sometime in the fifth century.  The traditional names are both in Aramaic:
t’lat d’fur’anuta - three (haftarot) of affliction - אתונערפד  תלת
sheva de-nechamta - seven (haftarot) of consolation - אתמחנד  עבש

Just to confuse things, some sources refer to 12 special haftarot.1  The reference is to two so-called Haftarot of Teshuvah or Repentence: an excerpt from Isaiah chanted on the Fast of Gedalia, which occurs immediately after Rosh HaShanah; and an excerpt from Hosea chanted on the Shabbat Shuvah, which falls between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.  For the rest of my d’var, I will ignore these two additional haftarot.

The timing of the first Haftarah of Afflication is significant.  It is traditionally linked with the Fast of Tammuz, which is thought to be the day that the outer walls of Jerusalem were breached by the invading Babylonians.  It took them three weeks to complete the capture of Jerusalem, and to destroy the First Temple, which accounts for the three weeks on which we have Haftarot of Affliction.  All three – the first two from early parts of the Book of Jeremiah and the third from early parts of the Book of Isaiah – focus on sins that were said to be widespread among the Israelites and the seemingly inevitable consequences of those sins, most specifically the fall of Jerusalem.  Appropriately, the selection from Isaiah, which comes closest to the date of Tisha B’Av, is chanted using the melody for chanting Eichah (Lamentations) on Tisha B’Av.  In some congregations all three haftarot use this mournful melody.  Strangely the blessings before the haftarot use the same melody but not those after it.

Even these three downbeat haftarot, in which God is chastising the nascent Jewish people and threatening them with dire consequences, come with an upbeat kicker at the end.  As explained by Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah:2

So, where did the Sages choose to end Haftarat Mattot? Always concerned to ensure that every haftarah concluded on a hopeful note, they opted for: “Israel is holy to the Eternal, the first fruit of God’s harvest. All who eat it shall bear their guilt; ill shall befall them” (2:3). More audaciously, when it came to identifying a fitting conclusion for Haftarat Mas’ei, the Sages skipped twelve verses from 2:28 to 3:4, and then a further twenty-one, to end at 4:1-2: “If you will return, O, Israel, says the Eternal, return to me.”

Indeed, as a number of commentators note, even if these sections roundly condemn the actions of the Jewish people, they are among the most poetic examples of rebuke, and by no means so terrible as some that appear in the Torah itself.

Turning now to the seven Haftarot of Consolation, the rationale for their number, selection and order is less clear.  All seven portions come from the latter half of the Book of Isaiah (“Second Isaiah”), but why are there seven?  Why not three to balance the Haftarot of Admonition, or perhaps four to show that God’s attribute of mercy will overcome God’s attribute of justice?  To complicate the issue, it is not clear how far the seven Haftarot of Consolation spread beyond Israel in the first Millennium.3  They do not appear in materials from Babylonia, and R. Saadiah Gaon (9th and 10th centuries) mentions only a single Haftarah of Consolation on the first Shabbat after Tisha B’Av. Two centuries later, Maimonides refers to this as the appropriate practice and explicitly takes issue with the custom of seven haftarot.  However, by the time of the Shulkhan Arukh (16th century), the pattern of three before and seven after Tisha B’Av was fixed for both Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities.4

We are still without an explanation of why we have seven Haftarot of Consolation in contrast to the three of Admonition.  One explanation is that it takes a long time to be comforted after a major loss.5  OK: but too simple and more excuse than explanation. 
More substantively, R. Avrohom Gordimer indicates that the link from Tisha B’Av to Rosh HaShanah is highly significant:6

Unlike any other time, Rosh Hashanah is marked as the day when we proclaim God's ultimate malchus - His kingship. On Rosh Hashanah, we not only affirm our belief in God's malchus; rather, we coronate Hashem as our king and reconnect to Him as His loyal subjects.

Contrasted with this state of affairs is Tisha B'Av, when human perception of God's glory in this world is stifled, as His House (the Beis Ha-Mikdash) is utterly destroyed, His people is exiled, and His land is forsaken. Kabbalistically, the present situation is termed "Galusa De'Shechinta" - "the exile of God's Presence".

If there is no authoritative answer to the question of why seven, neither is there any definite answer as to why the specific selections from Isaiah were chosen.  Several options are suggested (and rejected) by R. Yitzchak Etshalom, a modern Orthodox educator in Los Angeles who makes prodigious use of the web.7  He notes that Mahzor Vitri, one of the oldest commentaries on liturgy in our literature (composed near the end of the 10th century by one of Rashi’s students), suggests that the order of the Haftarot of Consolation follow the pattern that would be used in personal affairs and go from “simple and understated comfort and ending in grander visions of solace.”  Etshalom admits that this is an appealing concept but one that is neither verified by the selections themselves nor justified by any principle of liturgical composition.

Another possibility originates with R. David Abudraham, who lived in the 14th century in Seville, who suggests that the order of the Haftarot represent a three-way dialogue among God, the prophet and Am Yisrael, as follows:
1) 	God tells the prophet - bring comfort to My people;
2) 	Am Yisrael then declares - God has abandoned me and I am not satisfied with the consolation of the prophet
3) 	The prophet then returns to God and says - the impoverished and persecuted nation refuses to be comforted
4) 	God then responds - it is I, says God, who comforts you.
And the sequence goes on until in the seventh Am Ysrael responds - I will, indeed, rejoice in God.  Rabbi Etshalom comments that this “is an interesting observation, but it only goes as far as the opening line in each Haftarah” and also that the drama would have been better had there been greater involvement of “the prophet and the people, such that each Haftarah was a new voice.”

Rabbi Etshalom’s own suggestion begins from the concept of stages of mourning exposed in Mahzor Vitry, but goes on to adopt a national rather than personal perspectives.  Thus, he suggests that the seven Haftarot reflect the following stages:

1.	Burial and Kaddish
2.	Beginning of Consolation
3.	An Eye to the Future
4.	Interaction with Consoler
5.	Anticipation of Greatness
6.	Restoring the Dignity of the Mourner
7.	Restoration and Growth.
I cannot begin to review Etshalom’s long exposition of his suggested sequencing, but they are certainly more solidly based than anything else I found.

There is more on the web about the Three Haftarot of Affliction and the Seven Hartarot of Consolation.  However, I will conclude on two general points.  Composing this d’var has emphasized to me once again how very rich is the liturgy of Judaism.  And it has also emphasized how our liturgy always goes back and forth between each of us as individual Jews and all of us collectively as the Jewish people.
 
Shabbat shalom, 

ENDNOTES