Haftorah Parashat Vayeshev
A Personal Note
This coming week, my family will mark the 17th yahrzeit of my father, a”h. Perhaps not coincidentally, this haftarah contains pesukim I referenced at the berit milah of my son Aryeh, who is named after his grandfather. The themes of this haftarah are ones that certainly infused my father’s life and his lessons to me, and I offer these words as partial reflection of the continuing debt I owe him for having ushered me into both worldly and Otherworldly life. Yehi zichro baruch.
Sticking Our Heads Firmly Into the Ground
This week’s haftarah is another example of the common phenomenon of a text that can mislead us into seeing a banal connection to the parshah, when a little bit of thought suggests a conceptually richer one, with greater educative value.
The haftarah opens up with Amos’ recurring line, “for three sins of Israel, and for four I will not forego,” and then names their having sold “a righteous person for money and an impoverished one for shoes.” This has often been taken as referring to the sale of Yosef, from this week’s Torah reading.
If that were true, it would mean that we read the whole selection for no particularly good reason. It also means that we are ignoring the simple meaning of the verse, since Amos does not care about Yosef, he is complaining about the Northern Kingdom’s willingness to put money above treating other people properly.
Reading further in the haftarah, we find that Amos’ complaint about the four sins leads him into speaking on Hashem’s behalf, complaining that throughout Hashem’s help of the Jewish people—defeating the Emori, taking us out of Egypt, leading us through forty years in the desert, giving us the Land—Hashem had set up prophets and Nazirites (nezirim). Instead of being grateful, the Jews had forbidden prophecy and fed the nezirim wine (thus violating their oath of nezirut).
Judgying by the number of verses devoted to this, it seems that Amos understands Hashem to care more about the Jews’ failure to hear the warnings sent them than their actual sins. Sin is understandable and comes to us all, but shutting out the voices meant to help us understand where we need to improve is less excusable. That also explains the punishment, that each of us will lose the quality that we would ordinarily rely on to save us from adversity; it was those that led us to feel comfortable ignoring the warnings of the prophets, so we will lose them.
The second half of the haftarah confirms this reading, because it focuses on Hashem’s having taken us out of Egypt, having “walked” with us, acts that show our connection to each other. Connected events should lead to expected results, as in the various metaphors Amos trots out. When a lion roars, it means he has caught his prey; when a bird falls suddenly to the ground, it’s been caught in a trap; when a trap springs, it means it has caught something; when alarms are sounded in the city, it signifies a time of danger. Note that all the cases involve capture or hunting, and Amos is pointing out the well-known signals of those events.
Those examples lead Amos to then remind us that Hashem does not act without informing the Prophets, so their words should serve the same warning purpose that the lion’s roar does. The people’s refusal to heed those warnings is thus the first, and crucial, step in leading to their downfall, and thus the one to be most bemoaned.
Looking back to the parsha, the haftarah seems to argue that the brothers’ biggest error was not the sale of Yosef (that, after all, may have been God’s plan, a way of maneuvering Yaakov to Egypt, as Yosef told them many years later), but their rejection of his dreams. Not liking the message of a dream does not allow for rejecting it, and accepting the truth, whatever its source, allows people to at least know which challenges they are facing, and to cope with them as best possible.
Famous Verses and Their Echoes
The first verse of the haftarah—“al shelosha pishei Yisrael, ve-al arba`ah lo ashivenu, for three sins of the Jews, and for the fourth I will not allow him back”—is recorded by Rambam, based on statements of the Gemara at the end of Yoma, as saying that Hashem does not count the first three times one commits a certain sin, only counting it from the fourth on.
That is an interesting use of the verse, since in context Amos seems to have been referring to four different sins, and Hashem’s finding a fourth type of sin was the problem. When Hazal understand the verse the other way, they are noting that the underlying issue is the level to which a person or nation are enmeshed in sin. That can reveal itself either by the range of sins they commit—so that having four different kinds of sin shows it—or by the repetitiveness of sin, which shows that, at least in that area of halachah, sin has entrenched itself in that person’s makeup.
When that same verse enumerates the sins, it mention the Jews’ selling a righteous person for money which, as we noted earlier, was taken by many to refer to the sale of Yosef. The Mabit (R. Moshe ben Yosef Trani, 16th Century Safed, Rabbi of the community after R. Yosef Caro’s death) cites that tradition as one of several examples to prove that the word “tsadik” does not have a single definition, since many sharply different figures all merit the term, each in his or her own way.
At the end of the Laws of Nezirut, of Nazirites, Rambam notes that the verse’s connecting Nezirim to prophets shows us that a proper Nezirut is undertaken only for the purpose of becoming holier and closer to God. (This raises the question of why abstaining from grape products is the way to do so, but that’s for another time).
Finally, the last verse of our haftarah uses the striking metaphor of “aryeh sha’ag, mi lo yira, the lion has roared, who will not fear?” as the lead-in to pointing out that when God speaks, prophets cannot but issue their prophecies. In the Responsa literature, this phrasing is also sometimes used to express trepidation about disputing earlier authorities. For one example, Noda BiYehuda, Later Responsa, Yoreh Deah 56, is about to disagree with a view of Rashba; he allows himself to do so because Ran adopts the view he accepts, but his use of the phrase expresses the sense that when an earlier great authority has spoken, it is only with trepidation that one may tender disagreement. Shabbat Shalom.[6] Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
[7] That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:
[8] And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.
[9] Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
[10] Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
[11] And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.
[12] But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.
[13] Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.
[14] Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself:
[15] Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself.
[16] And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD.
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Amos.3
[1] Hear this word that the LORD hath spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying,
[2] You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
[3] Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
[4] Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing?
[5] Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all?
[6] Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
[7] Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
[8] The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?