Haftorah HaChodesh

Today is Shabbat HaChodesh, the last Shabbat of the calendar year. Our liturgical calendar is tricky, not only because it’s lunar rather than solar, but because the Head of the Year (Rosh HaShanah) is in the autumn, but the first month of the year is in the Spring. Just to keep you on your toes. In leap year particularly, the buildup through the merriment of Adar to the deeper joy of Nissan is a steady process marked by the four special Shabbats, where we screw with Your Humble Blogger’s plan some more. This is the last of them; Passover is nigh. Ezekiel 45:16-46:15:

All the people of the land shall give this oblation for the prince in Israel. And it shall be the prince's part [to give] burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meat offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make reconciliation for the house of Israel.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the first [month], in the first [day] of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary: And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put [it] upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court. And so thou shalt do the seventh [day] of the month for every one that erreth, and for [him that is] simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.

In the first [month], in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten. And upon that day shall the prince prepare for himself and for all the people of the land a bullock [for] a sin offering. And seven days of the feast he shall prepare a burnt offering to the LORD, seven bullocks and seven rams without blemish daily the seven days; and a kid of the goats daily [for] a sin offering. And he shall prepare a meat offering of an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and an hin of oil for an ephah. In the seventh [month], in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened. And the prince shall enter by the way of the porch of [that] gate without, and shall stand by the post of the gate, and the priests shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate: then he shall go forth; but the gate shall not be shut until the evening. Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the LORD in the sabbaths and in the new moons. And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the LORD in the sabbath day [shall be] six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish. And the meat offering [shall be] an ephah for a ram, and the meat offering for the lambs as he shall be able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah. And in the day of the new moon [it shall be] a young bullock without blemish, and six lambs, and a ram: they shall be without blemish. And he shall prepare a meat offering, an ephah for a bullock, and an ephah for a ram, and for the lambs according as his hand shall attain unto, and an hin of oil to an ephah. And when the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of [that] gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof.

But when the people of the land shall come before the LORD in the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go out by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate: he shall not return by the way of the gate whereby he came in, but shall go forth over against it. And the prince in the midst of them, when they go in, shall go in; and when they go forth, shall go forth. And in the feasts and in the solemnities the meat offering shall be an ephah to a bullock, and an ephah to a ram, and to the lambs as he is able to give, and an hin of oil to an ephah.

Now when the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the LORD, [one] shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering and his peace offerings, as he did on the sabbath day: then he shall go forth; and after his going forth [one] shall shut the gate. Thou shalt daily prepare a burnt offering unto the LORD [of] a lamb of the first year without blemish: thou shalt prepare it every morning. And thou shalt prepare a meat offering for it every morning, the sixth part of an ephah, and the third part of an hin of oil, to temper with the fine flour; a meat offering continually by a perpetual ordinance unto the LORD. Thus shall they prepare the lamb, and the meat offering, and the oil, every morning [for] a continual burnt offering.

I like the idea that for the solemn feast days, you can’t go out of the Temple by the same gate you entered; you have to physically and logistically alter your path. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to actually do it, with a big crowd and all, everybody having to go all the way to the other side and out the other door, and then come back around the outside, with the peddlers and stalls set up to take advantage of the foot traffic. Feh. Of course, Ezekiel wasn’t actually doing it himself, what with the Exile. And if he is writing for me (as he must be), then the image and the metaphor is enough.

I’ve been really enjoying the four Shabbatot this year. Normally I don’t pay any attention to them at all. Even if I am in synagogue, it’s just a matter of a different Maftir and a different Haftorah. These are not holidays with observances, they are just names for the liturgical deviations of the calendar. And I don’t generally pay much attention to the Haftorah, to be honest. The year that I went every week, we skipped the Haftorah entirely, because we were spending so long discussing the Torah portion, and I liked that. I know the Haftorah portions themselves are often quite dull, with their ephas and their gates, but the cumulative effect, for YHB, is the build-up to Passover that is exactly what it is supposed to be. So score one for the liturgical calendar.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.