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 BALAK
(Micah 5:6-6:8)
The remnant of Jacob, says the Divine voice in Micah, need not place their hope in mortals. But this demands answering to the Divine voice which, with the ancient mountains for witness, pleads a case against Israel. Before the people can be free from their enemies, they must be responsible to the divine covenant.
Micah presents the case in the Divine voice. Israel has been taken out of Egypt and given the faithful leadership of Moses, Aaron and Miriam. And when Balak, hoping to take advantage of the sinful idolatry of Israel at Shittim, brought Balaam to curse the people, divine anger and judgment were suspended, insuring the safety of Israel. Yet Israel remains far off.
After first adopting the defensive tone of the confronted people, Micah then mocks their trust in enormous sacrifice. Does the covenant demand myriads of streams of oil or sacrifice of the first-born? As is so often the case, Israel prefers the limited concrete gesture, without understanding the infinite, unlimited divine partner in the covenant. They prefer a limited covenantal partner who makes limited demands. Who can bear to hear the seemingly limitless, ever changing call of a covenant with an absolute Divine partner whose passion is ultimate values?
With careful attention to the original Hebrew of chapter 6, verse 8, we may hear the Divine voice in Micah contrasting the conventional demands of the existing social structure with the Divine ethical imperative: "It has been told you, O man, what is good"--you have been told what is good by human voices, you have been told only of exaggerated sacrifices at the Temple. But,in contrast, " What does HaShem (the Divine name,impossible to define or limit) require of you?"--the ethical life of justice and love befitting a humble partner in a covenant which, from its beginning, has been the means for embodying the fundamental idea that humanity is made in the Divine image.
(Tsvi Blanchard)
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