Haftara

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Nevi'im (prophets) of the Tanakh
Front prophets
Rear prophets

The Haftara ( Hebrew degree, plural: Haftarot) is the public reading from the books of the prophets on Jewish holidays and on the Sabbath . The Hebrew Bible has a different arrangement of the individual books than in Christian Bibles. “ Books of the prophets” include not only the scriptures , but also various other “history books” such as the Book of Joshua , the Book of Judges, and the like. a. (see Tanach ).

reasons

The Torah stipulated that the Torah should be read publicly ( Alijah laTorah ). This was expanded by the rabbis to include weekly readings on Shabbat and later also on market days on Monday and Thursday.

When foreign rulers forbade Jews to learn the Torah at a later time, the rabbis assigned each reading to a section from the books of the prophets that had a similar content. These Haftarot were then read instead. When the ban on learning the Torah was lifted, the reading of the Haftarot was retained, so that today every Torah reading is followed by an Haftara.

According to another tradition, the Haftarot were introduced to combat the influence of certain sects, which taught that only the Torah itself is holy scripture.

Times

In addition to the Torah reading, a Haftara will be read on the following days:

Content

Most of the time, the Haftarot are more or less related to the relevant section of the Torah. Example: The first Parascha (ie part of the week) of the Jewish year , Bereshit 1.1 EU to 6.8 EU , describes the creation of heaven and earth. The Haftara of Bereshit begins accordingly with the quote from Isaiah 42: 5:

"Thus says God, the Eternal, who created the heavens and stretched them out ..."

In addition, there are entire periods in the liturgical year in which the content of the Haftarot was not selected according to the Parascha, but according to the corresponding period.

There are differences in the allocation of the Haftarot to the respective weekly periods according to Ashkenazi and Sephardic , sometimes also according to Portuguese or Yemeni tradition .

The Haftarot are usually much shorter than the Torah sections to which they belong. While the Torah is read publicly in its entirety, the Haftarot only represent excerpts from the other books of the Tanach.

Lecturer

At the end of the Torah reading (after the call of seven or five men or women, Hebrew Alijot) the Maftir is called. The lecture at the end of the respective Torah section is repeated. On holidays or special Shabbatot z. In some cases, another passage from a second Torah scroll was read out. The maftir then recites the Haftara. Just as the Torah is to be sung according to a specific notation, the Haftara also has its own melody.

literature

  • Hanna Liss : Tanach. Textbook of the Jewish Bible (= writings of the University for Jewish Studies Heidelberg. Vol. 8). 3. Edition. In collaboration with Annette M. Böckler and Bruno Landthaler. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-825359041 (Here the connections between Paraschijot and Haftarot are explained in more detail and the special Haftarot are highlighted. A list of all Haftarot can be found in the appendix).

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