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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:BOOK BURNING:HAFTARAH
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:PFEFFERKORN+MAXIMILIAN BOOK BURNING
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL: PFEFFERKORN + MAXIMILIAN BOOK BURNING
Shalom Talmudim v' Chaverim:
Talmida Stephanie wanted to remind us, with a bit of history, that while most of us in this class, if not all, live in nations where Jewish texts are readily available, for much of our history, it was forbidden to study them. She sends us an article on book burning in Europe of our texts.
Indeed the Haftarah was developed during a time when the Syrian-Greeks would not let us study Torah. This ruling began in 168 B.C.E., when the Jews were under the rule of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the antagonist of the Hanukah story. Jews were forbidden from reading or studying the Torah and made do with a substitute. This is stated in Talmud Bavli Tractate Megillah 3:4 as explaining that "the ban was made by the Emperor Antiochus in the period of the Chashmonaim." As we know from other lessons, the family name of the Maccabees, when they assumed power, was called Hasmonean.
There are those who state that the Haftarah was developed to be read with the Torah portion, by Rabbis, to counter the priests, who were against the development of Talmudic Rabbinic Judaism, and only ascribed to the Five Books of Moses. However this argument falls flat, because the Karaites, who are the philosophical descendants of non-Talmudic Hebraism, have their own Haftarah portions, read from Nevi'im. The haftarah was not developed under Roman rule, but was continued then.
Other than the above mention of the Haftarah in the Talmud, the only other mention of it in the Talmud is that a haftarah was read in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus , who lived circa the time of the second Temples destruction (Talmud Bavli Tractate Megillah 4:10).
(Rabbi Eliezer is one of the most quoted in the Talmud. He helped smuggled his teacher Johanan ben Zakkai through the besieged walls of Jerusalem, past the Jewish zealots, so that Johanan could make a deal with the Romans to save Talmudic Judaism. he was very conservative and came into conflict with the more liberal majority of the Sanhedrin. He refused to bend to the majority, although the Talmud states God agreed with him, and he was excommunicated. On his death bed, the ban was lifted and rabbis gathered to hear him lecture until his breath faded and he died.)
We are not sure when the Haftarah was canonized and a specific reading was assigned to a specific Torah parasha. We do know from Yosef Caro, the author of the Shulkan Aruk, that for the longest time, the person reading the maftir, could pick what Haftarah portion he wanted. Even when it began to have regulation, different communities had different Haftarot, and today the Ashkenazi have different readings than the Sephardim.
Proof of this is seen in Luke 4:16-21, where Rabbi Y'shua goes to his Nazareth synagogue on Shabbat and reads a Haftarah from Isaiah 61:1. In all of the Jewish Haftarot today, including the special ones for holidays, this verse is not on the list. By the way, the verse is :''The spirit of God is upon me because God has anointed me." Remember, that moshiac in Evrit, comes from the root word for being anointed.
Now this is odd because our Haftarot do include Isaiah chapters 60, and 62 and 63, as well as the end of chapter 60.
By itself this may be considered just a coincidence. But I have learned that where organized religion is concerned, there are no coincidences. Further study has led me to find information at the Ben Ezra Synagogue where Maimonides prayed in Fostat, now Cairo. This beautiful synagogue is now in the Coptic quarter, but still a synagogue with a mikva. In was founded in 882 CE. The information I was seeking was found in their Geniza book depository by Rabbi Solomon Schechter in 1896. It was their ancient Haftarah list. All of chapter 60 was read by this congregation during Maimonides time. Is this because this synagogue, which Ellen and I visited, was in Moslem territory, at Rambam's time even under Kurdish Salah al-Dīn , and they did not have to be concerned about Christological passages in the TaNaK?
Even further research has lead me to find that the following passages are skipped in our Haftarot: Is. 7:4 "a maiden shall conceive"; Is 52:13 and 42:1-4 which talk of a ''suffering servant of God'' and are referred to in Matt. 12:18-21.
On the second day of Rosh ha Shana, our Haftarah is from Jeremiah 31 and stops right before 31:21 ,which talks about a ''new covenant'' God will make with his people and these verses are quoted many times in the Christian Bible.
Further the Haftarah list excludes Hosea 1:1 and Matthew quotes this verse to explain why the infant Y'shua is taken to Egypt and then returned to Judea; Micah 2:6 refers to the election of a youth from Bethlehem and is quoted in Matt 2:6 and John 7:42; Zech 9:9 which refers to a ''king coming',' with ''salvation,'' ''riding on a humble mule''; and Zech 12:13 which refers to ''30 coins'' which Matt. 26:14-15 and Mark 14:10-11 refer to as prophesying Judas' betrayal for this amount of shekels.
Malachi 3:1 is not used in our Haftarot. It says "behold, I will send My messenger," and this is quoted in Matt. 11:10, Luke 7:27, Mark 2:2, and John 3:28. What is odd about this, like our first Isaiah verse, is that the verses following this one in Malachi are used in our Haftarot, specifically on Shabbat ha Gadol, the Great Sabbath, before Passover.
While Stephanie, and I applaud her, reminds us of a time when our books were burned and we could not legally study, (but we did anyway), it appears that we censored our own texts. Yet there are no ''minutes'' of any assembly meeting to do so. This all had to be done after the militant rise of Christianity and the Eastern Roman Empire, or perhaps done in Europe during the horrific times under Western Roman Catholicism. It was post Talmudic, 500 CE, and we are not sure if it was pre of post Rambam (circa 1200 CE). But there is such a pattern, it is obvious that it was done on purpose.
The purpose, I doubt, was to hide the 'truth' about Jesus from the Jews. I suggest that with forced no-win disputations with Rabbis versus clergy, [who usually were ex-Jews who became more anti-Semitic than their employer-Bishops], Talmudic bonfires, and horrid other acts of anti-Semitism like forcing Jews to run naked through the streets while they were being whipped, the rabbis, for self preservation and for safety of the Jewish community, made sure that they were not reading anything aloud, that the Church could claim were 'their' verses, and that the Rabbis could be accused of blaspheming.
It is ironic that in the USA and Israel, where we are the most free to study and be spiritual Jews, we are some of the least learned at this point in our history.
Thanks Stephanie for sharing this bit of history, below.
Shalom.
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hebrew College, Newton Centre, MA, USA
via Shamash org on-line class
JEWISH RENEWAL:
JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC
BLUFFTON,SC
SAVANNAH, GA
stephanielovit@gmail.com
Sent: 6/17/2008 12:49:22 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Jewish Spiritual Renewal: Tuesday, June 17, 2008
''Today in Jewish History Sivan 14, 5768 = June 17, 2008
Jewish Books Spared from Destruction (1510)
in 1509, Emperor Maximilian of Germany ordered that all Jewish books in the cities of Cologne and Frankfort be destroyed. This followed the request of Pfefferkorn, a baptized Jew, who claimed that Jewish literature was insulting to Christianity. The Jews appealed to the Emperor to reconsider this edict, and Maximilian agreed to investigate the matter. He appointed Johann Reuchlin, a famed German scholar, to conduct the investigation. The report issued by Reuchlin was very positive. He demonstrated that the books openly insulting to Christianity were very few and viewed as worthless by most Jews themselves. The other books were needed for Jewish worship, and contained much value in the areas of theology and science.
The Emperor rescinded his edict on the 14th of Sivan, 1510.''
Sent: 6/17/2008 12:49:22 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
Subj: Jewish Spiritual Renewal: Tuesday, June 17, 2008
''Today in Jewish History Sivan 14, 5768 = June 17, 2008
Jewish Books Spared from Destruction (1510)
in 1509, Emperor Maximilian of Germany ordered that all Jewish books in the cities of Cologne and Frankfort be destroyed. This followed the request of Pfefferkorn, a baptized Jew, who claimed that Jewish literature was insulting to Christianity. The Jews appealed to the Emperor to reconsider this edict, and Maximilian agreed to investigate the matter. He appointed Johann Reuchlin, a famed German scholar, to conduct the investigation. The report issued by Reuchlin was very positive. He demonstrated that the books openly insulting to Christianity were very few and viewed as worthless by most Jews themselves. The other books were needed for Jewish worship, and contained much value in the areas of theology and science.
The Emperor rescinded his edict on the 14th of Sivan, 1510.''
Shalom.
Stephanie
credit to Chabad.org
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