Haftorah B’haalot’cha

Well, and here’s the tricky part. The Haftorah for Parshah B’haalot’cha (Numbers 8:1−12:16) is Zechariah 2:14−4:7, which we have seen before:

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.

It’s the special Haftorah from Shabbat Chanukah, which we read back in December. This week, we read it in its normal spot in the liturgical calendar. Ah, well.

Joshua, by the way, is not the Joshua of the book of Joshua, the inheritor of the Mantle of Moses, but a different Joshua, the post-exilic High Priest. He stands before the messenger of the Lord in dirt and rags. Why? Because of his sins? The Rabbis attribute it to his sins, or rather, to the sins of his sons, which demerit accrues to him as well. However, the Lord rebukes Satan for accusing Joshua, so should we not learn from this? Let’s not accuse Joshua ourselves; he is a brand from the fire.

Or it is the rags of exile, of Diaspora, of wandering? Well, not so much wandering, of course, as the exiles in Babylon seem to have been pretty comfortable (considering) and stationary. But metaphorically, the exile could well appear as traveling clothes, dirty from the road. But then, why doesn’t he change? Why doesn’t he preserve a pristine priestly robe, and clothe himself in glory before he stands before the messenger of the Lord? Or has he been dragged away, perhaps by the Adversary, without opportunity to prepare himself for the trial? Or, perhaps, has he rushed to the Messenger of the Lord of his own eagerness, not taking the time to change his clothes?

Or, again: are the garments tzo’im (used only in these two verses in Scripture) only in comparison to the raiment of angels? Is the filthy robe they strip from him the clothing of This World, and the princely robe and mitre they give him the clothing of the World to Come? I’m not a big fan of such interpretations, but there does seem to be something of that in the scene. The Adversary, the Judgement, and the new raiment and crown.

I suppose I should set up a poll: Why do you think Joshua the Priest is wearing a dirty robe? Pick one: Mortality, Sin, Exile. But one of the things that I like about Scripture is that I don’t have to pick one. I can leave the image unbound, for the moment, until the next time I come to it, and see what strikes me about it then. And if I were to choose, now, I could choose again, later.

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.