The Haftarah Project: Vayetze – Exploring Divine Punishment and Forgiveness
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Haftarat Vayetze
(Hosea 12:13-14:10)
This haftarah, from the book of Hosea, is, to me, one of the more problematic in the canon. It contains extremely violent imagery, in this case directed against sinning Israelites. After the haftarah lists all the horrible things that have happened and will happen to the people because of their disobedience to God, the scene is recuperated and the people are promised a peaceful and prosperous future in extraordinarily beautiful and poetic language. The God who claims to have been the only one to have looked after Israel in all its history
has become the chief the punisher: “Like a bear robbed of her young I attack them and rip open the casing of their hearts…Samaria must bear her guilt, for she has defied her God. They shall fall by the sword, their infants shall be dashed to death, and their women with child ripped open” (13:8, 14: 1). But then, God will receive the people back in love when they fully repent of their wrongdoings: (“I will heal their affliction, generously will I take them back in love…I will be to Israel like dew; he shall blossom like the lily, strike root like a Lebanon tree. His boughs shall spread out far, his beauty shall be like the olive tree’s…They who sit in his shade shall be revived; they shall bring to life new grain, They shall blossom like the vine…” (14:5-8)
The contrast between the punishing violence and the glorious acceptance is sharp and almost too much to bear. The head-turning about-face generates a sense of whiplash, and evokes an abusive partner who “takes [the lover] back in love.”
What does it mean to read these passages as Hosea seems to want us to, as if, in the end, all is forgiven? Can such violence ever be forgotten by either partner? Should it be? Is the God who reacts in these ways to violations of the covenant one we want to worship? Or take as a model for how to behave? [How] can we continue to read this as sacred text? Do we want to?
Such issues are raised by many of the prophetic writings. We may have become so used to them that we don’t really think about how they shape us and/or our larger culture. To be sure, I cannot deny that people may respond to betrayal by wanting revenge; but in general, we don’t act on these feelings. Why is it OK that God does?
Is there another way? Could we think, perhaps, of the model that we have in the Torah story that provides the backdrop to this haftarah—the conflict between Jacob and Esau? Jacob has effectively tricked and betrayed Esau (stealing his birthright and his blessing for himself), leaving Esau furious and wanting to kill him. So Jacob runs away, giving them both a “cooling off” period of 20 years. When, in the next parashah, Jacob prepares to meet Esau, he sends gifts to propitiate him, spends the night wrestling with an angel (with his demons?) and, when they finally meet, Esau says to him “I have enough, my brother…” and Jacob says to him “…for to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” There is an end to open enmity—at least for the moment; not yet trust (at least not on Jacob’s side), but still, a reconciliation, an ability, now, to see the other that required distance, but not violence.
Or maybe, as in the case of members of Combatants for Peace in Israel/Palestine, what we can do is to see the humanity in the other. I offer this poem as an example, written by a Palestinian poet, and read at a peace demonstration by the Israeli CfP activist, Maoz Inon, whose parents were killed on October 7.
“Revenge,” Taha Muhammad Ali
From the Collection “Hymns & Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations” by Peter Cole
At times … I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I’d rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!
*
But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who’d put
his right hand over
the heart’s place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they’d set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.
*
Likewise … I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn’t bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbors he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school …
asking about him
and sending him regards.
*
But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbors or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I’d add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I’d be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge.
Nazareth
April 15, 2006