Haftarah for Bereishit: Redemption, whether we deserve it or not
Isaiah 42:5 – 43:10
This reading begins with the prophet quoting God: “Thus said God the Lord/Who created the heavens and stretched them out/Who spread out the earth and what it brings forth,/Who gave breath to the people upon it/And life to those who walk thereon.” The prophet goes on to say, “I created you, and appointed you/A covenant people, a light of nations.”
There is a tension running throughout the Hebrew scripture, between the Jewish people as unconditionally God’s chosen, and their status only as long as they merit it. This is very problematic, because on the one hand, if God can choose the Jews, cannot he someday decide to unchoose them? But does God break promises? Throughout scripture, the prophets rail at the people Israel as stiffnecked, treacherous, fickle, undeserving, scoffers, who have failed to love God as they should have. And many of the disasters that have befallen the Jews are looked on as the proper consequence of deserting God.
But God has never deserted us. It is the ultimate message, even of the fiercest condemnation in the prophetic literature, that God will redeem us, that God is waiting to redeem us, if we will but return.
This haftarah contains vigorous, even violent language. “The Lord goes forth like a warrior/Like a figher He whips up His rage./He yells, he roars aloud/He charges upon his enemies.” But all this energy serves a noble purpose: “I will lead the blind/By a road they did not know/And I will make them walk/By paths they never knew/I will turn darkness before them to light/Rough places into level ground/These are the promises – I will keep them without fail.”
Isaiah was talking to the Jews who had been exiled to Babylonia after the destruction of the first temple in 586 B.C.E. They had ample reason to believe God had abandoned them. Among other peoples, destruction of a central religious space had frequently been followed by widespread apostasy. That undoubtedly happened, as some Jews who felt they’d been abandoned by God decided to repay the favor.
Isaiah’s response was to preempt this by charging that God had not abandoned them but that they had abandoned God – and that God was waiting for them to return, after which he would return them to their home. “But now thus said the Lord – /Who created you, O Jacob/Who formed you, O Israel:/Fear not, for I will redeem you;/I have singled you by name/You are Mine.”
The passage selected for this haftarah ends with God promising that after their redemption, the Jews will be seen as God’s witnesses and servants.
Thus, God will save us not just for our own merits but so that God will not be seen as powerless or as a breaker of His promises.
There is an implicit challenge in all this – God will redeem us nevertheless, but Israel should and must return to God so as to truly deserve God’s redemption. This is one of the themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, of course. In a sense, it is the theme of all of Judaism: God loves us even though we constantly fall short of His ideal, but God will never give up on us.
Never.
This reading begins with the prophet quoting God: “Thus said God the Lord/Who created the heavens and stretched them out/Who spread out the earth and what it brings forth,/Who gave breath to the people upon it/And life to those who walk thereon.” The prophet goes on to say, “I created you, and appointed you/A covenant people, a light of nations.”
There is a tension running throughout the Hebrew scripture, between the Jewish people as unconditionally God’s chosen, and their status only as long as they merit it. This is very problematic, because on the one hand, if God can choose the Jews, cannot he someday decide to unchoose them? But does God break promises? Throughout scripture, the prophets rail at the people Israel as stiffnecked, treacherous, fickle, undeserving, scoffers, who have failed to love God as they should have. And many of the disasters that have befallen the Jews are looked on as the proper consequence of deserting God.
But God has never deserted us. It is the ultimate message, even of the fiercest condemnation in the prophetic literature, that God will redeem us, that God is waiting to redeem us, if we will but return.
This haftarah contains vigorous, even violent language. “The Lord goes forth like a warrior/Like a figher He whips up His rage./He yells, he roars aloud/He charges upon his enemies.” But all this energy serves a noble purpose: “I will lead the blind/By a road they did not know/And I will make them walk/By paths they never knew/I will turn darkness before them to light/Rough places into level ground/These are the promises – I will keep them without fail.”
Isaiah was talking to the Jews who had been exiled to Babylonia after the destruction of the first temple in 586 B.C.E. They had ample reason to believe God had abandoned them. Among other peoples, destruction of a central religious space had frequently been followed by widespread apostasy. That undoubtedly happened, as some Jews who felt they’d been abandoned by God decided to repay the favor.
Isaiah’s response was to preempt this by charging that God had not abandoned them but that they had abandoned God – and that God was waiting for them to return, after which he would return them to their home. “But now thus said the Lord – /Who created you, O Jacob/Who formed you, O Israel:/Fear not, for I will redeem you;/I have singled you by name/You are Mine.”
The passage selected for this haftarah ends with God promising that after their redemption, the Jews will be seen as God’s witnesses and servants.
Thus, God will save us not just for our own merits but so that God will not be seen as powerless or as a breaker of His promises.
There is an implicit challenge in all this – God will redeem us nevertheless, but Israel should and must return to God so as to truly deserve God’s redemption. This is one of the themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, of course. In a sense, it is the theme of all of Judaism: God loves us even though we constantly fall short of His ideal, but God will never give up on us.
Never.
posted by Tom Beck at 6:16 PM
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