June 2025
Bechukotai
Haftarah Reflections 33
Torah portion Leviticus 26 : 3 – 27 :34
Haftarah portion Jeremiah 16 : 19 – 17 : 14
Listen to the Prophets
The word “haftarah”, means something like ‘completion, ending or conclusion’. To that extent then, it is supplementary to the Torah reading, adds something, and then finishes.
The Leviticus Torah passage has a focus on idolatry. Unsurprising then, the sages decided to couple that reading with this section from the prophecy of Jeremiah.
A major distinguishing feature between Israel and other nations (gentile nations) around them, was the ‘gods’ they worshipped. YHWH Elohim, the God of Israel had commanded that the Israelites should have ‘no other gods before Me’. So, our parashah today begins with Jeremiah seeing a day when the gentiles would recognize Israel’s God and say “we have been misled, our fathers taught us to worship futile, worthless, unprofitable things”. God then speaks to Jeremiah , quoting from the prophet Amos, that He would cause the gentiles to ‘know My hand and MY might and they shall know that My Name is YHWH Elohim’.
It is not the first time in Scripture that we see that God had the intention that gentiles would know Him ... BUT always in the context of those gentiles recognizing Him as the God of Israel. Perhaps this is best illustrated in the writings of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. There Paul likens gentile inclusion to a “grafting” onto the natural olive tree of Israel. In our church setting today we have somehow managed to completely change that to require Israel to be “grafted” onto the ‘wild olive’ tree of the gentiles!!
However, Jeremiah’s burden is for Judea. He had witnessed the wanton disobedience the tribes of the Northern Kingdom, and seen the consequence. We saw in last week’s parashah, although later in time than this week’s reading, that God did eventually cause Judah also to be taken captive.
Jeremiah’s prophetic vision is a long recitation of warning. In Chapter 17 v 5 we find him quoting Isaiah, a prophet with a similar task of warning these two tribes in the Southern Kingdom against their calamitous path of following the ways of the Northern tribes.
What a lesson this provides for us. “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord”. Can anyone else recognize man’s state today in that statement? The resulting consequence is catastrophic. Yet every day we see and hear evidence of man’s utter arrogance towards our Creator. In absolute contrast, verses 7,8 of the same chapter, quoting the psalmist we read the promise God has made to those whose heart is firmly on Him “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” It is a great description of safety, fruitfulness and productive life. And it is for those who trust in the Lord.
Why would anyone choose anything else? Well, Jeremiah had a ‘direct’ line to God. And God revealed truth to Jeremiah when He told him what to say next. “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
Friends, there can be NO clearer statement from YHWH Elohim anywhere in the Scriptures. That verse of Scripture should be emblazoned on our mind ... every day. Jeremiah had been given the onerous task of warning the people to mend their ways. How easy it is to find fault in others. To see the wrong course being charted by friends and relatives, even spouses! Is anyone else like me? I can see so clearly how these Israelites of old went wrong, time and again. Why did they keep repeating mistakes over and over again and again? Then the bombshell! They were just like I am. That’s the bad news. Let us rather focus on the really good news here in verses 7,8. Read a very slightly different version in Psalm 1. Be blessed as you take care to heed the warnings, not only of Jeremiah, but that of YHWH Elohim. “I, the LORD, search the heart.”
Shabbat Shalom
RS