Haftara
haftarah, haphtara, Hebrew: הפטרה) "parting," "taking leave"[1] (plural form: haftarot or haftoros), is a series of selections from the books of Nevi'im ("Prophets") of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) that is publicly read in synagogue as part of Jewish religious practice.
The origin of haftara reading is lost to history, and several theories have been proposed to explain its role in Jewish practice, suggesting it arose in response to the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes which preceded the Maccabean Revolt, wherein Torah reading was prohibited,[3][4] or that it was "instituted against the Samaritans, who denied the canonicity of the Prophets (except for Joshua), and later against the Sadducees.
"[3] Another theory is that it was instituted after some act of persecution or other disaster in which the synagogue Torah scrolls were destroyed or ruined, as it was forbidden to read the Torah portion from any but a ritually fit parchment scroll, but there was no such requirement about a reading from Prophets, which was then "substituted as a temporary expedient and then remained.
"[5] The Talmud mentions that a haftara was read in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurcanus, who lived c. 70 CE,[6] and that by the time of Rabbah bar Nahmani (the 3rd century) there was a "Scroll of Haftarot", which is not further described.
is that in 168 BCE, when the Jews were under the rule of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, they were forbidden to read the Torah and made do with a substitute.
[10] An alternative explanation, offered by Rabbis Reuven Margolies and Samson Raphael Hirsch (except where otherwise identified, this is the Hirsch cited throughout this article), is that the haftara reading was instituted to fight the influence of those sects in Judaism that viewed the Hebrew Bible as consisting only of the Torah.
[11] The Christian Bible indicates that readings from the Prophets - but not necessarily a fixed schedule - was a common part of the Sabbath service in Jerusalem synagogues even earlier than 70 CE.
In recent centuries, Ashkenazi bar mitzvah boys, (now an adult) will read at least the maftir portion and the haftara.
[15] Rabbi Yosef Karo (16th century) reported that for many years there were no set haftarot: the maftir chose an appropriate passage from the Nevi'im.
[16] Over time, certain choices became established in certain communities; in contemporary Jewish observance one may not choose his own haftara, explained Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, as that would run against accepted custom.
[17] Rabbi Karo's explanation, however, helps to explain why communities have varying customs regarding what to read as haftara.
The Sephardic practice is to recite, immediately after the text of the haftara and before the concluding blessings, the verse of Isaiah 47:4 ("Our Redeemer!
Blessed are you, Lord, who has chosen the Torah, and his servant Moses, And his people Israel, And the prophets of truth and righteousness.
Immediately after the last word of the haftara has been read, many Sefardic, Mizrahi, and Italic congregations traditionally recite two Bible verses, which are then repeated by the maftir:[38] Our Redeemer - the Lord of Hosts is his name - the holy one of Israel.
This practice appears to have ceased during the Middle Ages: it is not in Amram's prayerbook of the 9th century although a phrase of it ["Trustworthy are you Lord our God, living and enduring forever", right after "words are true and just"] is in the Mahzor Vitry , (ca.
[42] The fourth blessing follows immediately: Make us glad, Lord our God, with the Prophet Elijah, your servant, and with the kingdom of the house of David, your anointed, May he arrive soon and bring joy to our hearts.
Before the second "Blessed are you", Soferim contains the line: "And in his days may Judah be made safe, and Israel to dwell securely, and he shall be called, 'the Lord is our vindicator'.
The lines "let no stranger sit on his throne" and "others continue to usurp his glory" might date back to the earliest Talmudic times, when the Hasmoneans and Herodians, rather than true descendants of the royal house of David, were rulers of the Holy Land.
This is from paragraph 13 of Soferim, which does not contain the phrase "by every living mouth", and which concludes with "who sanctifies Israel and the Day of [holiday name]."
And on Yom Kippur, replace the last line with : Blessed are you Lord, the King who pardons and forgives our sins and the sins of his people, the family of Israel, and who removes our iniquities year after year, King over all the earth, who sanctifies [the Sabbath,] Israel, and the Day of Atonement.
The Talmud also says that the haftara should be at least 21 verses in length, to match the minimal Torah reading,[49] but if the "topic finished" (salik inyana) applies this requirement is not necessary.
In antiquity there was no prescribed list of haftara readings for the year, although the Talmudic literature (including the Midrash and Tosefta) does report some recommendations for specific holidays.
It would appear that, in antiquity, the choice of portion from the Prophets was made ad hoc, without regard for the choice of previous years or of other congregations, either by the reader or by the congregation or its leaders; this is evidenced by recommendations in Talmudic literature that certain passages should not be chosen for haftara readings, which indicates that, to that time, that a regular list for the year's readings did not exist.
[51] Further evidence of the lack of an ancient authoritative list of readings is the simple fact that, while the practice of reading a haftara every Sabbath and most holy days is ubiquitous, the different traditions and communities around the world have by now adopted differing lists, indicating that no solid tradition from antiquity dictated the haftara selections for a majority of the ordinary Sabbaths.
The tradition to read Nevi'im with its own special melody is attested to in late medieval sources, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic.
Leonard Bernstein employed the Haftara cantillation melody extensively as a theme in the second movement ("Profanation") of his Symphony No.
In the era of the Geonim, some communities, including some in Persia, read a passage from Nevi'im (whether or not in the form of a haftara) Sabbath afternoons.
A tradition that might have dated back to medieval times was that a boy would read the haftara on the Sabbath prior to his Bar Mitzvah, and on the day of his Bar Mitzvah read the portion from the Torah but not the haftara; this custom changed, in the United States, in the late 19th century or early 20th century, when the Bar Mitzvah would read both the Torah and haftara on the Sabbath immediately following his 13th birthday.
A study of the antiquity of each of these lists, and how they differ from each other, is beyond the scope of this (or any other brief) article but may be most informative on the history (including the contacts and separations) of the various communities.
[62] In general, on the dates below, the haftarot below are read, even if that entails overriding the haftara for a Sabbath Torah portion.
