This week’s portion is Miketz, and we here at the Tohu Bohu get a double portion of Haftorah goodness. The Haftorah associated with Miketz is 1 Kings 3:15-4:1, which is a famous story of Solomon. There are two women who live in the same house, and they give birth three days apart. One of the babies dies (the accusation is that the mother lay on it in the night, and one woman accuses the other of swapping the corpse for the live infant. In other words, each claims that the other one accidentally killed her own child and now claims the other’s child as her own. No, that’s still confusing. Why aren’t we told their names? Jane says that Joan killed Joan’s child and that Joan claims Jane’s child is Joan’s, and Joan claims that Jane killed Jane’s child and that Jane claims Joan’s child is Jane’s. I think. Anyway, two mothers, one baby. King Solomon calls for a sword to divide the child equally between the two, and Jane says to give the child to Joan rather than kill it, and Joan says gam-li, gam-l’cha, neither yours nor mine but divided. And Solomon says T’nu-lah, give her the child, and don’t slay it with slayings, for she is the mother. She presumably meaning Jane, but we’re not actually told. And the people of Israel fear the king, v’yiru mipnay hamelech because of his wisdom. As would I. That’s a gruesome tale from beginning to end, and if it is meant to show the wisdom of Solomon, which it is, I have to think it is also meant to show that kings are a Bad Thing, and that we will always regret taking power away from the courts and giving it to the executive. I would feel better if that child grew up to be a prophet or something, or at least we had some information on his later years. Or the women’s names.
However, all this is by the way, because we don’t actually read Haftorah Miketz today. It’s Shabbat Chanukah, which means that we read a special Haftorah in honor of the holiday. In fact, we hardly ever read Haftorah Miketz, because Miketz is almost always read during Shabbat Chanukah, what with the liturgical calendar keeping Chanukah more or less the same distance from Simchat Torah (when we start from Gen 1:1) every year.
What we do read on Shabbat Chanukah is Zecharia 2:14 (2:10 in the Christian Old Testament numbering)-4:7. I’m using the KJV, as usual:
Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.
And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: [is] not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD stood by. And the angel of the LORD protested unto Joshua, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If thou wilt walk in my ways, and if thou wilt keep my charge, then thou shalt also judge my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they [are] men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone [shall be] seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.
And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all [of] gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which [are] upon the top thereof: And two olive trees by it, one upon the right [side] of the bowl, and the other upon the left [side] thereof. So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What [are] these, my lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This [is] the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. Who [art] thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel [thou shalt become] a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone [thereof with] shoutings, [crying], Grace, grace unto it.
Let’s focus on that last paragraph, shall we? We’ll need a couple of verses from later in the chapter, Zec 4:11-12: “Then answered I, and said unto him, What [are] these two olive trees upon the right [side] of the candlestick and upon the left [side] thereof? And I answered again, and said unto him, What [be these] two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden [oil] out of themselves?“ Zechariah has a vision of an oil lamp (not a candlestick, which wouldn’t make sense with the pipes) and two olive trees. The olives fall from the trees into vats like golden bowls. There they are made into pure oil, which is pumped (through golden pipes) into the seven lamps of the “candlestick“. Rashi tells us that the olives fall by themselves and press themselves, the vats heat themselves, and the resultant pure oil pumps itself into the lamp, all without human touch. “What are these, my Lord?“ asks Zechariah, not because he doesn’t recognize a couple of olive trees and an oil lamp, but because of the automated processing system. “This is the word of the Divine“ responds the angel, the word give physical form as a metaphor. Not by might, nor by power is the olive oil brought to the lamp but by my spirit. Zerubbabel, who first of all has a terrific name and secondly is tasked by Darius with rebuilding the Temple, is being given a lesson about the real source of authority.
But what does Zechariah have to say to us on this Chanukah? When we light our own lamps, and tell the story of the Maccabees and the oil, what does this image of the miraculous self-fuelling auto-lamp 3000Z (olive trees extra) tell us? Maybe that image is something I can use to get over my uneasiness with the whole Chanukah story. After all, This year I’ve read an atheist’s claim that we shouldn’t observe Chanukah because it celebrates the victory of fanatical extremists over secular humanists, and an orthodox Rabbi’s claim that we should observe Chanukah because it celebrates the victory of fanatical extremists over secular humanists. I’ll take the crazy atheist’s side on that one, thanks. But Zechariah says that the menorah can be a symbol of the uselessness of earthly power and might, a symbol of the overflowing bounty of the Lord. The miracle is not just that one day’s oil burned for eight days while the olives were harvested, pressed and purified. The miracle is that olives exist, that lamps burn, not by might, not by power, but by the spirit of the Divine Creator. Grace, grace unto it.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
The divide-the-baby story makes me think of a kids’ book I had (as a kid) telling stories of Ooka Tadasuke, who I think was referred to in the book as “Ooka-san” or “Judge Ooka” or something. It took several famous stories of judges from various parts of the world and adapted them to medieval Japan; one of the stories was the divide-the-baby story. I already knew the original Solomon version, but it was still interesting to see the adaptation (which didn’t, iIrc, give any indication that it was an adaptation).
Unrelatedly: thanks for the analysis of Chanukah in these entries; good stuff.