| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
13 Aug 2005 01:46:57 PM |
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Censorship within the Jewish Tradition (from Haaretz) |
Interesting article from Haaretz:
What happened to Jesus' haftarah?
By Hananel Mack
The custom of reading a chapter from the Prophets section of the Bible
in public in the synagogue is an ancient one, although we do not know
when precisely it was instituted, who introduced it and what the
circumstances were surrounding its introduction. Even the very meaning
of the term haftarah that is used with reference to this reading is not
sufficiently clear. The Hebrew word maftir apparently refers to someone
who completes the public reading from the Holy Scriptures, whereas,
according to the concept expressed by the parallel Aramaic term,
ashlamta, the maftir is perceived as someone who complements the order
of the public reading from the Pentateuch.
The Mishna (Megilla 4) recognizes the principle of the haftarah as an
integral part of the Jewish liturgy on Sabbaths and holidays, but does
not disclose anything regarding the history of the haftarah's
introduction into the liturgy. Additionally, the Mishna does not
establish which chapters from the Bible are appropriate for public
reading in the synagogue on Sabbath, holidays and other special days in
the Jewish calendar, but does present two passages in the Book of
Ezekiel that should not be read in public: the first chapter on the
merkava (chariot), and the 16th chapter, on Jerusalem's abominations.
In practice, however, and, in contravention of the Mishna's
prohibition, the chariot chapter is traditionally read in all
synagogues on the festival of Shavuot and, in some synagogues, the
chapter on Jerusalem's abominations is included in the haftarah
readings.
The Tosefta, a Tanaic work that appeared after the Mishna, lists the
haftarot to be read on four Sabbaths during the year, while the Talmud
broadens the discussion and presents the haftarot to be read on
holidays, on Sabbaths that fall during the intermediate days of
Passover and Sukkot or during Hanukkah, on the fast of Tisha B'Av
(which marks the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem), and so
forth. Nonetheless, the Talmud presents no orderly list of haftarah
readings for most Sabbaths during the year; the establishment of these
readings gradually developed over the generations. Even today, we know
of alternative practices concerning certain haftarah readings and the
points at which they begin and end. Despite this, it can be said with
confidence that the basic customs regarding haftarot have remained
reasonably stable over the centuries, and that the replacement of
certain customs has become an accepted practice and has been well
documented for many generations.
Different customs
In accordance with the today's customs, the weekly Torah readings
follow an annual cycle in which the Five Books of Moses are divided
into portions whose number is roughly equivalent to the number of weeks
in the year. This tradition is referred to as the Babylonian custom and
it has been the accepted practice in Jewish communities throughout the
world for hundreds of years. However, during the Talmudic period and
for many years afterward, it was customary in Palestine and in other
countries, especially Egypt, to read the Torah in accordance with a
cycle lasting approximately three and a half years. In line with this
practice, the Torah was divided into sedarim, whose number vastly
exceeded the number of portions that are read in accordance with the
current custom. At least one haftarah was selected to match each Torah
reading. Obviously, the number of haftarot traditionally read in Eretz
Israel was far greater than the number read according to the other
custom. To these haftarot, we must, of course, add those read on
holidays and "special" Sabbaths. We know of most of these haftarot from
the lists that emerged from the Cairo Geniza. It, however, is not the
only source of the information we have on haftarot being read according
to the ancient custom practiced in Eretz Israel, which was discontinued
in the Middle Ages.
The earliest source we have on that custom is the New Testament.
According to the narrative in Luke (4:16-21), Jesus returns to his
hometown, Nazareth and, on the Sabbath, he goes to the synagogue where
he reads from the Torah. He is then given the Book of Isaiah. Jesus
opens the book and reads the passage that begins "The Spirit of the
Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me" (Isaiah 61:1).
Following the haftarah, he delivers a sermon in which he argues that in
that reading, the verse was fulfilled in the ears of the congregants in
other words, the prophet's words about a mortal anointed by God are
realized in the person of Jesus.
It is unclear from this Christian source why the book is opened at this
particular passage: Does Jesus open it at that specific point or does
the hazan (cantor), who was in charge at the synagogue, deliberately
open it at this chapter? Devout Christians are of course free to
interpret this incident as a miracle whereas scholars interested in the
Jewish tradition of haftarot will conclude that the reading of a
passage from the Prophets after the Torah portion on the Sabbath was an
accepted custom in Nazareth several decades before the destruction of
the Second Temple, and that it's thus possible that the custom also
existed elsewhere. Similar evidence can be found in Acts (13:15) where
the narrative refers to a Jewish community in Asia Minor (in the
vicinity of Antalya in Turkey).
Deliberate exclusion
A perusal of the list of haftarot read today reveals that the chapter
that Jesus recited in the synagogue in Nazareth is not read on any of
the days in the Jewish calendar on which a haftarah follows the Torah
reading that is, on none of the Sabbaths nor on any of the major
holidays or fast days. This statement also holds true for the "special"
Sabbaths during the year that is, when the Sabbath coincides with rosh
hodesh (the first day of the month), Hanukkah, one of the intermediate
days of Passover or Sukkot, etc. This point is especially blatant with
respect to the seven Sabbaths between Tisha B'Av and Rosh Hashanah, the
Jewish New Year. On each of them, haftarot are read from the chapters
of consolation in the Book of Isaiah (chapter 40 onward). Is this
merely a coincidence? Apparently, Isaiah 61:1 is deliberately not read
in the synagogue, but it is difficult to determine when and where the
decision was made to exclude it. The heads of Jewish communities, who
had some familiarity with Christian faith and literature, preferred to
refrain from reading the same chapter Jesus read in the synagogue in
Nazareth, which he claimed corroborated his divine mission on earth.
When the customs concerning the fixed haftarah readings were
formalized, the abhorrence felt toward this chapter remained and is
reflected in its exclusion from the list of haftarot in use today. This
point is especially noteworthy given the fact that the chapters
preceding and following that problematic passage chapter 60, and the
end of chapter 61 and chapters 62 and 63, respectively are read each
year in public as haftarot.
As we can learn from the lists in the Geniza, there were some
communities where chapter 61 was indeed read as a haftarah, although it
should be recalled that the Jews of the Geniza period lived in Egypt,
which was under Muslim rule. They were not very familiar with or
troubled by Christians' faith and customs, although the source of many
of the traditions outlined in the Geniza is the Holy Land, whose Jewish
inhabitants were very familiar with Christianity. It should be pointed
out that the reading of this chapter as a haftarah is documented in a
single, old prayer book, reflecting a custom in the Balkans before the
traditions of the Jews banished from Spain and Portugal became dominant
at the turn of the 16th century. Nonetheless, this custom is a marginal
phenomenon in the history of Jewish culture and, in any event, was
followed by communities, according to their prayer books, that lived in
the shadow of Islam in the Ottoman Empire.
'Christological' passages
An additional perusal of the list of haftarot read today indicates that
we are not dealing with an isolated incident, but rather a general
trend. Perhaps we should view this unreported trend as a sort of
addendum to the limitations in the Mishna that were mentioned above.
Generally speaking, Jews excluded from the haftarot those verses on
which Christians based the principles of their religious faith. Thus,
all of the customs related to the haftarah readings omit the passage in
Isaiah whose focus is the well-known verse, Behold, a virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son" (7:14), because it is the foundation of the
Christian belief in the concept of the Virgin Mary and the virgin birth
of Jesus. The term "virgin" is translated as such in the Septaguint and
that is how Christians explicate the verse to this very day.
Another crucial passage in Christian doctrine is the text that opens
with "Behold, my servant shall deal prudently" (Isaiah 52:13), which
depicts the servant who personally suffers for the sins of humanity and
whose greatness and stature are eventually recognized by all. This
chapter as well is not read in any synagogue; the same holds true for
Isaiah 42:1-4, which, although not generally recited, are documented in
a few rare traditions. Their exclusion is due to their appearance in
Matthew (12:18-21).
The same principle is applied in the case of the "Christological"
passages outside the Book of Isaiah. On the second day of Rosh
Hashanah, the haftarah that is read is one of the most wonderful
chapters in the Prophets Jeremiah 31. It stops at the famous words that
have become part of the Jewish liturgy today: "Is Ephraim my dear son?
Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly
remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will
surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 31:20). It is no
mere coincidence that the haftarah ends here and does not continue with
the next few verses, to the promise that Jeremiah utters regarding the
new covenant that God will draw up in the future with his people one of
the most commonly quoted passages in the New Testament. The only
exception to the prohibition on reading those verses is a source that
is on the very margins of the old, peripheral Balkan custom.
Similarly, the haftarah list excludes Hosea 11:1: "When Israel was a
child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt," because
Matthew uses that verse to explain why the infant Jesus is taken to
Egypt and then brought to the Holy Land at his heavenly father's
summons. Another passage that is not read is Micha 5:2, which refers to
the election of the youth from Bethlehem (see also Matthew 2:6 and John
7:42). Also excluded is Zechariah 9:9: "behold, thy king cometh unto
thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an *****,
and upon a colt the foal of an *****." That verse was manifested,
according to Christian belief, when Jesus entered the gates of
Jerusalem leading a group of his disciples and riding a colt (see also
Matthew 21:5 and John 12:14-15). The same treatment was given to
Zechariah 12:13, which Christians interpret as a prophecy concerning
the 30 shekel coins in return for which Judas betrays Jesus (see
Matthew 26:14-15 and Mark 14:10-11).
Another passage that has been excluded is Malachi 3:1: "Behold, I will
send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me" (see also
Matthew 11: 10, Mark 2:2, Luke 7:27 and John 3:28). And one could think
of more examples. The verse in Malachi is apparently included in
Maimonides' list of haftarot, however, but not in the Geniza list. In
this case, too, the deliberate Jewish tendency toward exclusion is
obvious because on Shabbat Hagadol, the Sabbath immediately preceding
Passover, most synagogues customarily open the haftarah with the verse
that comes afterward (Mal. 3:4): "Then shall the offering of Judah and
Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord." The haftarah is documented in the
Geniza as belonging to another Sabbath in the Jewish calendar year, and
there as well it opens with this verse.
The subject under discussion here, which was raised this past week at
the 14th World Congress of Jewish Studies, held in Jerusalem, calls for
continued research on such topics as a more effective definition of the
"Christological" verses in the Old Testament; a precise categorization
of the various customs of haftarah readings, their sources and
dissemination; and a critical discussion of the sources of these
customs. Nevertheless, it would appear that the phenomenon is not mere
coincidence and that the trend discussed in the above examples and in
others that have not been mentioned, was consciously implemented.
Although Jews tended to omit certain passages from the Prophets in
their haftarah readings, no Jewish scholar ever considered avoiding
discussing and studying them as an integral part of the Jewish
Scriptures. Another research study might reveal that the very verses
and chapters and not just those appearing in the Prophets which
occupied a distinguished status in Christian eyes, were extensively
explicated by Jewish Torah scholars intensively involved in the
education and religious training of the Jewish community, and unwilling
to exclude any passage in the Bible from their consideration.
---------------
BM
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| User: "ריעין ברתון/Riain Barton" |
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| Title: Re: Censorship within the Jewish Tradition (from Haaretz) |
13 Aug 2005 10:36:17 PM |
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Must have been very hard to do since Nazareth did not even exist until
200 to 300 years after the so-called birth of "Jesus".
<cherniymonakh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123958817.593496.244610@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
: Interesting article from Haaretz:
:
: What happened to Jesus' haftarah?
:
: By Hananel Mack
:
: It is unclear from this Christian source why the book is opened at
this
: particular passage: Does Jesus open it at that specific point or does
: the hazan (cantor), who was in charge at the synagogue, deliberately
: open it at this chapter? Devout Christians are of course free to
: interpret this incident as a miracle whereas scholars interested in
the
: Jewish tradition of haftarot will conclude that the reading of a
: passage from the Prophets after the Torah portion on the Sabbath was
an
: accepted custom in Nazareth several decades before the destruction of
: the Second Temple, and that it's thus possible that the custom also
: existed elsewhere. Similar evidence can be found in Acts (13:15) where
: the narrative refers to a Jewish community in Asia Minor (in the
: vicinity of Antalya in Turkey).
.
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| User: "El Conquistador" |
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| Title: Re: Censorship within the Jewish Tradition (from Haaretz) |
14 Aug 2005 08:05:57 AM |
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"ריעין ברתון/Riain Barton" <riain@zion.org.il> wrote in message
news:AVyLe.12913$XM3.4038@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
Must have been very hard to do since Nazareth did not even exist until
200 to 300 years after the so-called birth of "Jesus".
Etot durak ni hera ne znaet monah!
<cherniymonakh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1123958817.593496.244610@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
: Interesting article from Haaretz:
:
: What happened to Jesus' haftarah?
:
: By Hananel Mack
:
: It is unclear from this Christian source why the book is opened at
this
: particular passage: Does Jesus open it at that specific point or does
: the hazan (cantor), who was in charge at the synagogue, deliberately
: open it at this chapter? Devout Christians are of course free to
: interpret this incident as a miracle whereas scholars interested in
the
: Jewish tradition of haftarot will conclude that the reading of a
: passage from the Prophets after the Torah portion on the Sabbath was
an
: accepted custom in Nazareth several decades before the destruction of
: the Second Temple, and that it's thus possible that the custom also
: existed elsewhere. Similar evidence can be found in Acts (13:15) where
: the narrative refers to a Jewish community in Asia Minor (in the
: vicinity of Antalya in Turkey).
.
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