Haftorah Parashat Aharei Mot-Kedoshim
Amos 9; 7-15
This week’s haftarah reads the last 9 verses of the book of Amos. I note the length because the brevity is so striking—we pick up the middle of a section, and then read only a few verses. In addition, the rest of the section, which is only eight verses, seems to echo the messages of the section we do read. Why don’t we read the whole thing?
Another immediate question is what makes this haftarah so important that we make sure to read it every year. When two parashiyot are read together, our general practice is to read the haftarah for the second, but we read this haftarah even though it is the haftarah for Aharei Mot, the first of the two. In addition, when Aharei Mot is Shabbat haGadol, we read “Halo Kivnei” on Shabbat Kedoshim.
The first four verses of the haftarah promise exile to the Jews as a whole and death to the sinners among them. The exact sins that will bring this about are a matter of debate among the commentators, based in large part on the opening metaphor of the section, where Hashem calls us “benei kushiyim,” like children of blacks/Africans.
Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra, and Radak each have differing interpretations of the import of that, so that Amos may be berating us for assuming we are inherently special, a view supported by Hashem’s pointing out that He can and has taken other people out of another nation, as with us out of Egypt, or that we were wrong not to recognize how specially Hashem treats us, as shown by Hashem’s destroying other nations when their time for punishment comes, while maintaining our survival throughout our troubles.
Whichever way we go—and there are others, such as seeing it as a complaint about our faithlessness, like spouses who fail to remain faithful in their marriages—the complaint revolves around our not paying proper attention to the nature of our relationship with God, as also stressed by Hashem’s promising to punish in particular those sinners who say, “The bad will not come because of me.”
A Pause for a Tirade on Providence, Punishment, and Productive Growth
We will get to the positive aspects of this haftarah in a moment, even though many of Amos’ listeners might have turned off after hearing this part, in the way people do when they do not like what they are hearing. Before we do, we should pause to absorb the complaints fully. God is bothered here less by the Jews’ specific sins than by their refusal to recognize God’s mechanism for running the world.
First, they pay insufficient attention to the uniqueness of the Jewish people (both for good and for bad). In the current context, they do not accept that God punishes the Jews differently than other nations, that while other nations will have no punishment for extended time, but then disappear from the world stage, the Jews will get punished repeatedly (and painfully), but that that punishment is an example of our guarantee of a continuing and irrevocable connection to God.
Second, they are too quick to excuse their behavior, to minimize its importance, to reject the possibility that their personal sins could lead to disaster, trouble, or tragedy.
I raise these issues because those attitudes seem to me both to explain how this haftarah connects to Aharei Mot and Kedoshim and also because they are attitudes prevalent in our times, I think to our detriment. On the first question, the parasha warns us to keep the laws of incestuous relationships carefully, so that the Land not vomit us out by virtue of our defiling it (the pesukim raise a whole other set of issues, the question of how and when the Land itself responds to our sins, a blurring of the line between physics and metaphysics that should be discussed, but not here).
If so, the haftarah complains about people who reject the possibility that those kinds of punishments occur, who lose the opportunity to even recognize God’s punishment and react appropriately to it. Such people will eventually be killed, lost to the future of Judaism, and will never even understand what happened.
Which brings us to wonder about our times, when people of all walks of life, but especially observant Jews, deny the possibility of connecting the sufferings of our people (or of other people—think tsunami or Katrina) to any actions we/they may or may not have committed. While I work hard to refrain from sharing my thoughts on possible reasons calamities may occur, I cannot express the distress it gives me that people who see themselves as fully observant, as on good terms with God, would relinquish this fundamental principle of God’s action in the world.
An example that has always struck me as interesting. A few months after Katrina struck, wiping out (among other places) the Ninth District of New Orleans, the city was not back to full strength, but did have tens of thousands of people living there. Even so, the New York Times reported, not one murder had occurred in New Orleans in all that time, where pre-Katrina New Orleans had had a very high murder rate, and the Ninth District was the most deadly region in the country.
I don’t need to claim to understand why Katrina struck (if, indeed, there was a reason—I don’t deny the possibility of natural disasters) to wonder how the residents of a city that hosts the most murderous region in the country could be so positive that God could not possibly be sending them a message.
Don’t Forget the Positive
My tirade, as tirades are wont to do, has gone on so long that I will not be able to give the promises of future goodness their due. God tells us that we will have tremendous economic bounty (as much of the world already does), be returned to our Land, rebuild destroyed cities, and establish a permanent and unbreakable residence in the Land. Wiping away the sinners’ and their incorrect perspectives of how God works is a vital prerequisite to reaching that blessed time, but it will come and will be bountiful beyond our imagination (or beyond theirs—I think we’re seeing a lot of it already).
One last thought: The haftarah is the source of the phrase and the promise that Hashem will establish for us “Sukkat David haNofelet, David’s fallen Sukkah,” a reference to his monarchy. Radak explains that we call a monarchy a sukkah because it protects the nation; we see a Davidic kingship as a return to a time when our government will protect us in all the ways we need, a Sukkah that will provide comfort, shade and security. Shabbat Shalom.
AMOS 9
[7] Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?
[8] Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.
[9] For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
[10] All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.
[11] In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:
[12] That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.
[13] Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
[14] And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
[15] And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.