D'var Haftarah Rosh Hashanah 5778: Samuel I:1–2:10
by Barbara Carr
Shanah Tovah. Today is the birthday of the world. It's the day for welcoming a new year, more with gratitude than with champagne. We are honoring the time of year when Torah tells us that God saw the work of Creation, and said simply, it was very good. We are in a festive mood despite knowing we are engaged in the most significant and personally difficult time of our religious year.
As with much of Jewish ritual life, there is a logic and psychological soundness in the framework of these Days of Awe. We begin anew today, but have ten days to close the book on ourselves and our past year, to check our internal scorecard and see how close we managed to come to hitting our target, a life lived rightly.
We'll juxtapose the perfection of God's work with the frailty of our own. We have been given a choice, and by the end of these ten days, we must answer the question first asked of Adam as well as many others. Where are you? Not literally, but spiritually.
And then, having been given the gift of choice, we make our own choices. Can we say to whatever Power that makes for our salvation the only answer that rings true? Hineni--Here I am, ready for my soul search.
Today as the rabbi told you, we are stepping away from the tradition of focusing on the Torah reading at this time in the service, and instead will take a closer look at the Haftarah reading from 1 Samuel that we traditionally hear only in Hebrew. It is the story of Hannah and the birth of her son Samuel, perhaps the most important of all our Judges.
Their story is found in the text at the beginning of the second section of the Tanakh called Nevi'im. Since we rarely explore our Bible structure beyond the Torah, a short review of our sacred texts may be in order. In its entirety, the Bible is called by the acronym TNK, standing for Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim. The word Torah when translated into English means teachings, beginning with Creation and ending with the death of Moses. The second section, Nevi'im, comes from the word Navi, which can mean both Prophet and Messenger. The third and final section, the K of TNK, is all the rest, the Writings. Included are psalms, proverbs, complete stories and glimpses of other cultures. Together, those three section are our Bible.
At every Torah service, we read a fixed portion and then conclude with a reading from Nevi'im, called the Haftarah. This reading is somehow connected (or similar) to the regular assigned Torah portion. These choices were made by the rabbis thousands of years ago, as a secret reminder of the weekly portion and a way to replace the banned public reading of Torah. The connections reminded us of what we were supposed to be reading. So they kept Torah alive.
So Haftarah, despite what you may have heard, is neither half a Torah nor a semi-historical book of sequential readings. We read these selections out of order because they are particularly chosen as teachings to bring Torah back into our hearts and minds. Haftarah is usually defined as completion or conclusion because it ends the Torah service. However, the most interesting definition I found was from a 14th century Rabbi in Spain who declared it to mean: be exempt. His reasoning was that by reading Haftarah and remembering Torah, you would be exempt from the religious obligation to study Torah every day.
But, I would not be exempt if I didn't point out a few of those seemingly invisible lines of connection that appear before us on this holy day (and thank you Lawrence Kushner for the book with that wonderful title). Fortunately for all of us, the connections are fairly clear.
Sarah and Hannah put women center stage today. To have the Birth of Isaac as our Torah portion, the Birth of Samuel as our Haftarah reading and both read on the world's birthday weaves a lovely webbing of family, of tradition, and even of the dream of Eden. Things are not going to stay as loving and safe as they are at this moment of synchronicity. Don't think ahead. Stay in this moment. Birth of all sorts is what we are contemplating through our texts and prayers today. Birth of the world, birth of a patriarch, birth of the great Judge Samuel, all are beginnings. And we are all here, ready to begin again ourselves.
The two woman have much in common, but they lived in very different times, hundreds of years apart. Sarah accepted her circumstances with sadness, but did nothing to change things while Hannah actively sacrificed and prayed for a child for years. Hannah is both angry and broken before God. Standing at Shiloh, asking God's help, we feel her anguish. Her heartfelt prayer and grief is overheard by the High Priest Eli, who unseen by Hannah, made a dramatic error in judgment. Watching Hannah crying and swaying and mumbling, he made the assumption that Hannah was drunk and chastised her. She answered Eli with truth, that she was simply pouring out her soul to God. Eli then blessed her with a vague wish that what she was praying for did occur and a renewed Hannah and her husband, Elkenah, returned home.
Hannah's prayer was answered and she gave birth to Samuel. Since she had promised to dedicate her son to God's service, she waited until weaning and then took him to live with the priest, Eli, and to serve God. Giving up Samuel is a strange culmination of Hannah's dream of bearing Elkenah a son. However, service to God was a gift, and as long as Samuel existed, doing God's work, Hannah was content.
Hannah is not only the mother of Samuel, the Judge who oversaw the establishment of the monarchy, but she also became a model for how to recite the Amidah—the long, standing prayer which replaced sacrifice in our services. Her permanent place in our ritual lives is marked each time a minyan recites the Amidah. While Eli watched Hannah pray, the story goes, he ultimately realized his error. He saw something powerful. The rabbis took the description of her movements and silences and based the "choreography" of the Amidah on Hannah's prayer.
Hannah stands in prayer. Her reverence demands our reverence when we recite what the rabbis called simply "The Prayer," the name being a sufficient definition. Hannah was praying with complete intent. Her lips moved but she made no sound. The Talmud preserves and honors the kavanah or spiritual intention of her prayer.
The rabbis of the Talmudic period saw Hannah as the first person to truly pray not just with keva, or fixed intent, but with kavanah, a way to give personal power to the words. This was the ultimate goal the rabbis had for post-Biblical, or rabbinic prayer.
Hannah's willingness to dedicate Samuel to the service of God shows a bond with the Holy that few can demonstrate. Her promise to give up what is most important to her is a bargain many of us would reject. However, she knew what was needed. Samuel would serve God and that would be her gift, too. Her call is as clear as Samuel's will later be. Hannah is certain that dedicating Samuel's life to God is the right thing to do. Her son will be a great man (and he was) if she fulfills her part of the bargain. She is a believer and has no fear of losing her son to God, her son will always be her son, but his work will be God's work.
So if we feel a challenge from the complicated history of our texts and our liturgy, let it happen. Feel the obligation to search for the connections and embrace what it teaches us. Our story enriches our religious life. Context is critical. We wonder at these ancient believers and how they are still part of our lives.
In the book by Lawrence Kushner which I previously mentioned, he has an essay on what he calls "The Game of Life." I will abbreviate the rules of play but the message is clear.
Rule One: You cannot decide when to begin playing.
Rule Two: You cannot decide when to stop playing.
Rule Three: Each player is delivered throughout the game, apparently undeserved disabilities and gifts.
Rule Four: Points are awarded whenever you can discern the presence or the signature of the Creator, and then act so as to help others see it too.
The Last Rule: Everything is connected to everything else.
And he closes with: Now that's my idea of a game.
Today is the birthday of the world. As our beginning begins again, see yourself as your real self. Understand the rules of the human game and play fair. For each of us, the lesson will be different as we bring our distinct strengths and weaknesses to the sanctuary today. Only we know why we're here. We bring our whole selves to the birthday of our shared world. We bring our connections, our hearts, our tears, our souls to the starting line again.
Because it's worth it.
Because it is why we're here.
As with much of Jewish ritual life, there is a logic and psychological soundness in the framework of these Days of Awe. We begin anew today, but have ten days to close the book on ourselves and our past year, to check our internal scorecard and see how close we managed to come to hitting our target, a life lived rightly.
We'll juxtapose the perfection of God's work with the frailty of our own. We have been given a choice, and by the end of these ten days, we must answer the question first asked of Adam as well as many others. Where are you? Not literally, but spiritually.
And then, having been given the gift of choice, we make our own choices. Can we say to whatever Power that makes for our salvation the only answer that rings true? Hineni--Here I am, ready for my soul search.
Today as the rabbi told you, we are stepping away from the tradition of focusing on the Torah reading at this time in the service, and instead will take a closer look at the Haftarah reading from 1 Samuel that we traditionally hear only in Hebrew. It is the story of Hannah and the birth of her son Samuel, perhaps the most important of all our Judges.
Their story is found in the text at the beginning of the second section of the Tanakh called Nevi'im. Since we rarely explore our Bible structure beyond the Torah, a short review of our sacred texts may be in order. In its entirety, the Bible is called by the acronym TNK, standing for Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim. The word Torah when translated into English means teachings, beginning with Creation and ending with the death of Moses. The second section, Nevi'im, comes from the word Navi, which can mean both Prophet and Messenger. The third and final section, the K of TNK, is all the rest, the Writings. Included are psalms, proverbs, complete stories and glimpses of other cultures. Together, those three section are our Bible.
At every Torah service, we read a fixed portion and then conclude with a reading from Nevi'im, called the Haftarah. This reading is somehow connected (or similar) to the regular assigned Torah portion. These choices were made by the rabbis thousands of years ago, as a secret reminder of the weekly portion and a way to replace the banned public reading of Torah. The connections reminded us of what we were supposed to be reading. So they kept Torah alive.
So Haftarah, despite what you may have heard, is neither half a Torah nor a semi-historical book of sequential readings. We read these selections out of order because they are particularly chosen as teachings to bring Torah back into our hearts and minds. Haftarah is usually defined as completion or conclusion because it ends the Torah service. However, the most interesting definition I found was from a 14th century Rabbi in Spain who declared it to mean: be exempt. His reasoning was that by reading Haftarah and remembering Torah, you would be exempt from the religious obligation to study Torah every day.
But, I would not be exempt if I didn't point out a few of those seemingly invisible lines of connection that appear before us on this holy day (and thank you Lawrence Kushner for the book with that wonderful title). Fortunately for all of us, the connections are fairly clear.
Sarah and Hannah put women center stage today. To have the Birth of Isaac as our Torah portion, the Birth of Samuel as our Haftarah reading and both read on the world's birthday weaves a lovely webbing of family, of tradition, and even of the dream of Eden. Things are not going to stay as loving and safe as they are at this moment of synchronicity. Don't think ahead. Stay in this moment. Birth of all sorts is what we are contemplating through our texts and prayers today. Birth of the world, birth of a patriarch, birth of the great Judge Samuel, all are beginnings. And we are all here, ready to begin again ourselves.
The two woman have much in common, but they lived in very different times, hundreds of years apart. Sarah accepted her circumstances with sadness, but did nothing to change things while Hannah actively sacrificed and prayed for a child for years. Hannah is both angry and broken before God. Standing at Shiloh, asking God's help, we feel her anguish. Her heartfelt prayer and grief is overheard by the High Priest Eli, who unseen by Hannah, made a dramatic error in judgment. Watching Hannah crying and swaying and mumbling, he made the assumption that Hannah was drunk and chastised her. She answered Eli with truth, that she was simply pouring out her soul to God. Eli then blessed her with a vague wish that what she was praying for did occur and a renewed Hannah and her husband, Elkenah, returned home.
Hannah's prayer was answered and she gave birth to Samuel. Since she had promised to dedicate her son to God's service, she waited until weaning and then took him to live with the priest, Eli, and to serve God. Giving up Samuel is a strange culmination of Hannah's dream of bearing Elkenah a son. However, service to God was a gift, and as long as Samuel existed, doing God's work, Hannah was content.
Hannah is not only the mother of Samuel, the Judge who oversaw the establishment of the monarchy, but she also became a model for how to recite the Amidah—the long, standing prayer which replaced sacrifice in our services. Her permanent place in our ritual lives is marked each time a minyan recites the Amidah. While Eli watched Hannah pray, the story goes, he ultimately realized his error. He saw something powerful. The rabbis took the description of her movements and silences and based the "choreography" of the Amidah on Hannah's prayer.
Hannah stands in prayer. Her reverence demands our reverence when we recite what the rabbis called simply "The Prayer," the name being a sufficient definition. Hannah was praying with complete intent. Her lips moved but she made no sound. The Talmud preserves and honors the kavanah or spiritual intention of her prayer.
The rabbis of the Talmudic period saw Hannah as the first person to truly pray not just with keva, or fixed intent, but with kavanah, a way to give personal power to the words. This was the ultimate goal the rabbis had for post-Biblical, or rabbinic prayer.
Hannah's willingness to dedicate Samuel to the service of God shows a bond with the Holy that few can demonstrate. Her promise to give up what is most important to her is a bargain many of us would reject. However, she knew what was needed. Samuel would serve God and that would be her gift, too. Her call is as clear as Samuel's will later be. Hannah is certain that dedicating Samuel's life to God is the right thing to do. Her son will be a great man (and he was) if she fulfills her part of the bargain. She is a believer and has no fear of losing her son to God, her son will always be her son, but his work will be God's work.
So if we feel a challenge from the complicated history of our texts and our liturgy, let it happen. Feel the obligation to search for the connections and embrace what it teaches us. Our story enriches our religious life. Context is critical. We wonder at these ancient believers and how they are still part of our lives.
In the book by Lawrence Kushner which I previously mentioned, he has an essay on what he calls "The Game of Life." I will abbreviate the rules of play but the message is clear.
Rule One: You cannot decide when to begin playing.
Rule Two: You cannot decide when to stop playing.
Rule Three: Each player is delivered throughout the game, apparently undeserved disabilities and gifts.
Rule Four: Points are awarded whenever you can discern the presence or the signature of the Creator, and then act so as to help others see it too.
The Last Rule: Everything is connected to everything else.
And he closes with: Now that's my idea of a game.
Today is the birthday of the world. As our beginning begins again, see yourself as your real self. Understand the rules of the human game and play fair. For each of us, the lesson will be different as we bring our distinct strengths and weaknesses to the sanctuary today. Only we know why we're here. We bring our whole selves to the birthday of our shared world. We bring our connections, our hearts, our tears, our souls to the starting line again.
Because it's worth it.
Because it is why we're here.
