Haftorah This Week
Welcome to Haftorah This Week, the place where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on this week's Haftorah.
HAFTARAT BEHA'ALOTKHA
(Zechariah 2:14-4:7)
I try to imagine what it was like the day after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and the leading Israelites carted off to Babylonia. I try to fathom the pain of experiencing the utter destruction of all the dreams I cherish and the worlds I have built. How could I make sense of a loss that denied everything in which I believed, including the God who would protect me?
The prophets had decreed the destruction of the Jewish state and declared Babylonia but the finger of the Divine, accusing God's people of infidelity. All the power and physical courage, the massive fortifications and advanced weapon systems were to no avail. The body of Israel was infected, but perhaps the soul of Israel could be saved. From exile, the prophets declare, return is possible if only Israel returns first to God.
For two generations, our people lived in Babylonian exile. When a saving remnant returns, they hear the prophet Zechariah describe the luminescent fires of a golden menorah with seven lamps surrounded by olive branches that will herald the return of God's people to Israel. And when Zechariah inquires of the angel that shows him the menorah, "What is this?", the angel proclaims that Israel will return "not by might and not by power, but by My spirit, says the Eternal God." Work and build and fight, the prophet declares, but temper your power with the spirit of God.
The psalmist who finally witnessed the return of the refugees from Babylonia to Eretz Israel exulted: "When God returned us from exile to Zion we were as one in a dream." But the hard work of reconstruction--Jerusalem's walls, family farms, homes, lives--was accomplished by the few Jewish men and women who trudged back with trowel or hoe in one hand and a spear in the other. Human effort and power were the necessary ingredients to rebuild the land and the people, but Zechariah's words "not by might and not by power but by My [God's] spirit" were the caveat to limit the hubris which helped bring on the prior destruction. When they finally completed building the second Temple, the golden lamp of Zechariah's vision illumined its precincts.
Millennia later, there is a new return of Jews from the four corners of the earth to Eretz Israel. After so long, our people once again came back as if in a dream. And with tractors and trucks and rifles in hand, the Jewish state was rebuilt. Certainly, the security of Israel was and is a product of the heroism and commitment of its citizen soldiers. Yet in front of the Knesset, as the symbol of the new state, these warriors placed once again the menorah of seven lamps surrounded by olive branches. The vision and words of the prophet Zechariah return to our land to caution those who would seek power alone, a reminder that Israel must also breathe the spirit of God.
(David Elcott)
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