Haftorah Parashat Vaera
Yehezkel 28;25-29;21
The Most Significant Challenge of Our Times (All Right, One of the Most)
The haftarah is a complex piece of writing, with many themes, but, having read over both the haftarah and my comments from last year, I feel comfortable saying that it overall is dealing with a question that I see as central to our times as well, how and when nations should see world events as connected to the hand of God.
Many people instinctively recoil from the topic, since it is so widely abused, as religious leaders show us all the time. Almost every time a calamity strikes the world, some religious leader, Jewish or not, will confidently announce why it happened. I won’t get into that topic fully here, (for my views, see www.torahcurrents.org, where Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg and I each wrote about the tsunami), but this week’s haftarah does force us to recognize that just ignoring the problem will not work.
The haftarah has 3 parts, each of which at least partially supports my claim. The main body of the haftarah records God’s complaint about Egypt’s seeing itself as all-powerful, and God’s threat that Egypt will be fully destroyed, lie desolate for forty years, and then return to spend the rest of history in subservience to those around it.
Parallel to a Torah reading where Moshe tries to convince the Egyptians that they cannot hold on to the Jews against God’s Will, the haftarah raises the question of how nations will learn to submit to God’s Will. Egypt is called the “Great Alligator,” proud of its Nile as a source of its power. In addition, the Midrash thinks the punishments promised to Egypt here parallel the Ten Plagues that are begun in this week’s sedra. Taken together, the point seems to be that Egypt in Yehezkel’s time is repeating Paroh’s error, seeing itself as fully independent, all-powerful, god-like.
Being laid waste is an appropriate punishment, since it will show the survivors and surrounding nations the folly of ever thinking of oneself as all-powerful. Forty years is a traditional time of reeducation—think of the Jews in the desert and how they are punished with forty years of wandering once they prove that they cannot shift their mindset from that of slaves to that of free servants of God—so Egypt’s time of desolation would seem to be geared towards teaching them a lesson.
That last point is made even more strongly by a Midrash that says that those forty years will be repayment for the five years of famine they avoided in the time of Yosef. (Tradition has it that once Yaakov came to Egypt, the famine ceased, after only two of the predicted seven years). Since forty years is many more than five, I suspect the Midrash is making a thematic connection—in Yosef’s time, when the famine had been directly predicted and prepared for under his guidance, the five years would have fortified their understanding that God rules many world events. At a later juncture, when the Egyptians have ignored all the various prophecies and been punished for that, they will need a fuller dose of reeducation before they can return.
Even then, having failed twice to understand that God is the source of all human and national power, they will be doomed to a history of subservience to other nations. Lord Acton famously said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but Hashem expects power to be used wisely, judiciously, and with humility. Those who cannot, will find their power taken away, never to return.
The center of the haftarah makes that point, but the introduction and conclusion—both independent sections, so that they were not absolutely necessary to the central reading—flesh it out nicely. The haftarah opens with the concluding verses to an earlier prophecy, telling of the Jews’ returning to their land, building homes, planting vineyards, and living securely, all as proof of God’s power in the world.
There can be many reasons for a navi to promise that, but the emphasis here is on the example it will set for other nations, which makes the navi’s singling out vineyards worth pondering. While it may simply reflect the reality of the time, I suspect that planting a vineyard is also seen as an inherently religious activity. Aside from the mitsvot connected to agriculture and to wine, farming is one of those human endeavors most reliant on factors out of human control.
Indeed, Rambam thought that all of avodah zarah, all of idol worship, had its roots in farmers’ attempts to gain greater control of the supernatural factors that would affect their harvests. (In defense of farmers, it is only in the last five hundred years that agricultural yields have been good enough to make food plentiful in most years in most parts of the world; the temptation to use any possible advantage in securing a better harvest must have been overwhelming).
The end of the haftarah points in the same direction. Hashem suddenly speaks to Yehezkel of Nevuchadnezzar, who is seen as having done God’s work in destroying Tsor, despite the likelihood that he did that for his own reasons. As part of that reward, Hashem says that Nevuchadnezzar will allow him to replace Egypt, which implies that Egypt had a role to play in world history, so that their passing from the world scene requires a replacement.
Possibly, Hashem envisions the world as always having one or two superpowers, entrusted with directing the course of events, and, ideally, seeing their job as given to them by God, for Godly purposes. Our haftarah shows us a superpower that instead became intoxicated with its power, leading to its eventual, but certain, downfall. Nevuchadnezzar will eventually go the same way, also becoming too sure of his power. The search for a superpower that handles its job as an extension of God’s impact on the world, that humbly and honestly seeks to do what God would want done, continues. Shabbat Shalom.
Yehezkel 28
[25] Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
[26] And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
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Ezek.29
[1] In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[2] Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:
[3] Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
[4] But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.
[5] And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.
[6] And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.
[7] When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.
[8] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.
[9] And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.
[10] Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.
[11] No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.
[12] And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.
[13] Yet thus saith the Lord GOD; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered:
[14] And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.
[15] It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.
[16] And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
[17] And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[18] Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it:
[19] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.
[20] I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord GOD.
[21] In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.