view from central park: tehilla r. goldberg

Exile — with a caveat

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It’s interesting to study the haftorahs, the Prophetic scriptures added to weekly Torah readings. If you first scan the portion of the week and then read the haftorah, inevitably there is a common motif or connection. The rabbis designed it this way, and it’s a good way to see the Torah in its organic flow.

I’d like to share a small aspect of this symbiotic relationship between Torah and Prophets via one idea from last week’s texts.

Because of a quirk in the Jewish calendar, in certain years the Torah portions read in Israel and abroad are not in sync for a few weeks after Passover. Last week, in the Diaspora, we read two Torah portions, Behar and Bechukotai, while in Israel, it was just one of the two. It’s interesting how the haftorah of Jeremiah 24:6-27 not only echoes the theme of the Torah portion but, last week, also subtly echoes the theme of Jerusalem Day, which fell on Sunday.

I don’t usually go for the contrived current-events-must-be-in-this-week’s-Torah-portion approach, under which — post facto — the good tidings or the opposite were foretold in that week’s text. So that’s not what I am going for here. But I do find the interconnectedness of Jeremiah to Jerusalem Day illuminating.

Heartbreakingly, Moses never reached the promised land, let alone Jerusalem. And Rabbi Akiva dreamed of one day fashioning a Golden Jerusalem for his beloved Rachel. For millennia, our ancestors were only able to pray and dream of one day touching the stones of the Wailing Wall. Our generation? We can go there whenever we choose.

In Behar, one of the great themes is the laws of the Yovel, or Jubilee, when, after 50 years, ownership of land is returned to its original owner. Order is restored, people return home. This is an intricate system of sociological justice. (The language used to describe this transaction is geulah, redemption, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

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