Haftorah Shabbat Shavuot
Please note that the Diaspora and the Land of Israel will be bidding temporary farewell to national unity this Shabbat, since we stuck in Huts La-Aretz will be following the Rabbinic rule that we need to keep two days of Yom Tov, while those lucky enough to reside in Israel will be celebrating Shabbat Parshat Naso. For us Diaspora Jews, the haftarah is from Habakuk.
The Quandary of Poetry
It would be foolish to try to deny the difficulties of this haftarah, its words, its poetry, how its phrases connect to each other; it’s just a hard piece of text. Aside from the challenge this presents to those who would like to learn God’s Torah, such a haftarah raises a more central question.
Since prophets were speaking to not only their generation (so one could perhaps claim that his audience could readily understand him, although I doubt it) but also to ours, the difficulty of this section of Tanach almost becomes a theological one—if Hashem wants us to know God, to understand what God wants from us, is there a reason the message would sometimes be couched so inaccessibly that the vast of majority of Jews, probably throughout history, have never understood it?
The question becomes even sharper given a remarkable Radak at the beginning of the haftarah. Radak notes that chapter 3 of Habakuk is written in the style of Tehillim, Psalms. He knows this because Habakuk uses the words “selah,” a word that only appears in Tanach in Tehillim and in Habakuk.
Pause for a moment to admire the knowledge he carried so lightly. In a pre-Concordance era—let alone the computer search I did to check that he was right—he could confidently assert that “selah” only appears here and in Tehillim.
God is Not Simple
The comparison also reminds us how much of Tanach—at least much of Tehillim, Shir HaShirim, Iyov, much of Daniel, Yeshayahu, Yehezkel, and much of Trei Asar—is similarly incomprehensible without hard work and many assists from Hazal, the Rishonim, the Aharonim, Daat Mikra, and even Artscroll. Here’s why: prophets, and those just below them, put us in touch with God’s Word, and God, being the Irreducibly Other, is not so easily put in terms we can understand.
It is not fashionable to say this in a society that thinks that all worthwhile truths can be stated in thirty seconds, but God doesn’t work that way. So as Habakuk here tries to get across a sublime message, it is churlish of us to complain that he couldn’t do it easily. Of course, now it is strange for me to think I can summarize that message in a page or so, but self-contradiction and being human go together.
Hashem the Ever-Present
Like many haftarot, this one starts at the end of a section, giving us only the last verse. In our case, the verse reminds us that Hashem is “be-heichal kodsho,” in His holy sanctuary, and that the whole earth either does or should be silent before Him. Granting room for nuance, Hazal, Rashi, and Radak take it as a reminder that we can see the effects of Hashem’s presence in the world, and that they should be awe-inspiring, even when that Presence is supposedly confined to a particular location (such as the Beit haMikdash). The coming words are going to build on the idea that we can see, feel, and note Hashem in the world around us.
Rashi reads the whole chapter as Habakuk trying to atone for his earlier having spoken harshly against Hashem and how Hashem treats the Jewish people, so the chapter recaps important aspects of Jewish history, including (drum roll) Matan Torah, but there are also verses about Hashem punishing the generation of the Tower of Bavel, of the Flood, and verses that note that Hashem punishes the Jewish people differently, maintaining an underlying mercy even while doing so.
A phrase in that section “Eloka mi-Teman yavo,” is taken by the gemara to imply that Hashem offered the Torah to all the other nations and they rejected it (again, good for this holiday), and then other phrases about Hashem helping us conquer Eretz Yisrael, punishing us for when we sin, ending with Habakuk saying that he trusts and rejoices in Hashem.
Radak adds that this prophecy is about our current exile, trying to give us hope even while it extends in length. In his reading, some of the verses also focus on Gog, the name that Tanach gives to the last world leader to try to resist the Jews’ special place in the world and the Kingdom of Hashem. The defeat of Gog, in Tanach, ushers in the era we all hope for, when the world will accept Hashem’s kingdom.
The Giving of the Torah: Hashem is Here Even As Hashem is Elsewhere
Ramban in Shmot 2;25 suggests, as a mystical secret, that some of our verses actually mean that God’s mercy to us is in the punishment itself, not in its restraint. I see this as connected to the gemara’s assumption that another phrase in our haftarah, “ra-ah va-yater goyim,” means that Hashem saw the non-Jews’ refusal to adhere to their mitsvot and therefore stopped rewarding them for when they did observe them.
To my mind, the two sources point to an essential aspect of being a religious person, the oxymoronic truth that Hashem is both immanent and transcendent, involved in the world while yet being wholly Other. If so, punishment needs to be evaluated as how Hashem is sending us a message, while mitsvot need to be taken as Hashem showing us the right way to inhabit and build Hashem’s world. Those who reject these lessons, regardless of what else they do, are missing the point of Matan Torah (where Hashem made that most fully clear), of punishment, and of this haftarah.
Megillah 28b reads a phrase from the haftarah, “halichot olam lo,” to support the contention that anyone who studies halachot each day is guaranteed a share in the World to Come. While the statement tempts us to take it as a simple-minded key to eternal life, the haftarah suggests that it means that halachah is the way we can discover and understand God’s plan for the world, and then join forces with Hashem in achieving those goals. (Were one to study halachot and not observe them, would we think that person would attain such a share? Yishtaka hadavar velo yeamer. It is studying them and getting their message that works) Binding oneself closely to the Divine Plan for the world guarantees us life, and it is getting us to realize that aspect of Matan Torah that moved and concerned Habakuk in the section we read this Shabbat. Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameah.
[20] But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
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Hab.3
[1] A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
[2] O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.
[3] God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.
[4] And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.
[5] Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.
[6] He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
[7] I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.
[8] Was the LORD displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?
[9] Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.
[10] The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
[11] The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.
[12] Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.
[13] Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.
[14] Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.
[15] Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.
[16] When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
[17] Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
[18] Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
[19] The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.