In Israel, this Shabbat is known as Shabbat 'Vehadarta'- the Shabbat when the verse that includes the words 'vehadarta pnai zaken,' meaning to honor the elderly, is read in Parashat Kedoshim. The late MK Uri Orbach designated it a Shabbat on which an elderly person should be honored with the third aliya (which contains the verse). He also suggested that synagogues and youth groups throughout Israel conduct lectures dedicated to the topic of respecting the elderly. This Dvar Torah expands the idea.
The two parashot Acharei Mot and Kedoshim are invariably combined in non-leap years (as this year 5786), and invariably read separately in leap years.
In non-leap years, the double parashah Acharei Mot-Kedoshim is invariably read in the three-and-a-half week period between Yom HaAtzma’ut and Yom Herut Yerushalayim. In leap years, Acharei Mot and Kedoshim are invariably read separately on the two Shabbatot immediately before Yom HaAtzma’ut.
In most congregations, the Haftarah for Parashat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim consists of the final 9 verses of Amos (9:7-15).
The connexion between the Parashah and the Haftarah is not immediately obvious, but there are two general trends of interpretation.
The first is that the Parashah opens with the command to be holy, and then gives dozens of mitzvot which constitute “being holy"; the Haftarah is Amos’s warning against those who defile that ideal of holiness by violating the Mitzvot.
The second is that Parashat Kedoshim concludes with G-d’s promise and warning that if we keep His mitzvot we will dwell securely in Israel, and if we violate His Torah the Land itself will vomit us out, as it vomited out the idolatrous nations (Leviticus 20:22-24); and in the Haftarah, the Prophet Amos warns the sinful nation that their sins will cause them to be expelled from their Land.
And now I venture to suggest a very different reason for this Haftarah:
The nine verses of this Haftarah divide very naturally into two sections: in the first four verses (7 to 10), the Prophet castigates the Jews for their sins; in the final five verses (11 to 15), the Prophet depicts the glorious future that yet awaits us in our Land:
“On that day I will raise the fallen Sukkah of David… Behold days are coming, says Hashem, that the ploughman will encounter the reaper, and the one who treads the grapes [will encounter] the one who sows the seeds".
The Land of Israel will yield a harvest so generous that even while yet ploughing, the time for reaping will already arrive; and the vines will be so rich with grapes that there won’t even be time to tread all the grapes before the next season for sowing (Rashi, Radak, Metzudat David).
That is to say, the abundance of crops on Israel’s soil is the sign of G-d’s blessing on His Nation.
The Prophet (and therefore our Haftarah) continues:
“I will bring My captive Nation Israel back, and they will rebuild desolate cities and inhabit them; they will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. And I will plant them on their Land, and they will never again be removed from on their Land which I have given to them - says Hashem your G-d".
With these words, the Book of Amos and our Haftarah conclude.
This prophetic message of the Return to Zion was tailor-made for this Shabbat, falling between Yom HaAtzma’ut and Yom Herut Yerushalayim.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) and the Midrash (Midrash ha-Gadol, Parashat Mikkeitz) cite Rabbi Abba:
“You can have no clearer sign of the קֵץ, the End [meaning the onset of the Redemption] than [the fulfilment of the prophecy], ‘And you, O mountains of Israel, will give forth your branch and bear your fruit for My nation Israel’ (Ezekiel 36:8)".
Rashi (commentary to Sanhedrin 98a, s.v. מגולה מזה) elaborates:
“When the Land of Israel will give forth its fruits generously, then the קֵץ, the End [the Redemption] will be approaching close, and you can have no clearer [sign of] Redemption than this".
Another Midrash cites another sign:
The prophet Zechariah prophesied, “Thus said Hashem, Lord of Legions: Old men and old women will yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with his staff in his hand because of his old age, and the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets" (Zechariah 8:4-5).
“Rabbi Eliezer said: There is no clearer sign of Redemption than this" (Yalkut Shimoni, Zechariah 574).
The Prophet does not foresee the rebuilt Holy Temple, or Yeshivot, or supernatural miracles; only a placid suburban scene for Jerusalem. The scene he depicts here is so familiar in today’s Jerusalem that we don’t even recognize it as anything to get excited about.
It is this future that the Prophet depicts for us in the Haftarah for this Shabbat, immediately after Yom HaAtzma’ut.
For well-nigh 2,000 years the soil of Israel was desolate and emaciated, the dwellers of this Land barely eking out subsistence-farming.
-If today Israel is exporting fruits and other agricultural produce throughout the world, then this is an indisputable sign that the Redemption is fast approaching. If today Israel is the only country in the world which has more trees than it did a century ago, this is proof that the Redemption is fast approaching.
-If old men and old women sit in the streets of Jerusalem and the streets of the city are filled with boys and girls playing in its streets, then this is an indisputable sign that the Redemption is fast approaching.
To deny this is to deny the Talmud; it is to deny the very concept of Redemption and Mashiach (the Messiah), the twelfth of the Thirteen Principles of Faith as defined by the Rambam (Commentary to the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10:1).
Rabbi Abba, who gave this definition of the Land of Israel becoming fruitful as the clearest possible sign of redemption, was a third-generation (mid-3rd century to mid-4th century) Amora. Born and raised in Babylon, Rabbi Abba was in his early years a disciple of Rav Huna (Menachot 29a) and of Rav Yehudah (Yevamot 75b), two of the greatest leaders of Babylonian Jewry.
But he made Aliyah, even before his close friend and colleague Rabbi Zeira did (Hullin 57a). It was in the Land of Israel that Rabbi Abba blossomed into the Torah-giant of renown, studying under Rabbi Yochanan bar Nafcha (Niddah 25b), who founded his Yeshivah in Tiberias.
(Rabbi Yochanan headed his Yeshivah for some 80 years; so great was the Torah-learning in Tiberias that the Sanhedrin was located there from the year 193 until its dissolution in circa 369.)
Rabbi Abba became so great a Torah-leader of his generation that the Talmud says of him, “Our master in the Land of Israel is Rabbi Abba" (Sanhedrin 17b).
This is the reason that he earned the title “Rabbi": the masters of Babylon carried the title “Rav", a lower level than “Rabbi" which was reserved for the masters in the Land of Israel. Though Rabbi Abba was born and spent his early years in the academies of Babylon, his real accomplishments were in Israel.
Rabbi Abba fully understood the greatness, the sanctity, and the centrality of the Land of Israel. And living under Roman occupation, at a time when Judaism was clearly on the decline under Roman persecution, he could but look forward to better days yet to come.
Those better days would take some 1,350 years to come - but come they eventually have done, and Rabbi Abba’s vision of the fruit-trees of the Land of Israel giving their fruits generously is our present-day reality.
In our Haftarah, the Prophet Amos begins his inspiring depiction of the glorious future time with the phrase:
בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֔וּא אָקִ֛ים אֶת־סֻכַּ֥ת דָּוִ֖יד הַנֹּפֶ֑לֶת
“On that day I will raise the fallen Sukkah of David" (Amos 9:11).
In this verse I note a grammatical anomaly:
The word for “fallen" is indeed נֹפֶלֶת (nofelet), as it appears in this verse. But the cantillation-mark under the word נֹפֶלֶת (fallen) is an אֶתְנַחְתָּ֑א, etnachta, which has the same grammatical rules as the פָּסֽוּק-סוֹף, sof-pasuk (“end-of-the-verse"). This means that the word נֹפֶלֶת (nofelet) should change to the pausal form, the form which appears at the end of the verse, which is נֹפָלֶת (nofalet).
It’s a minuscule grammatical point - but when a Prophet speaks, even minuscule grammatical points are significant.
So why does the Prophet refer to David’s fallen Sukkah as נֹפֶלֶת (nofelet), rather than the grammatically-correct form נֹפָלֶת (nofalet), as it should appear at the end of a sentence?
- I suggest that the Prophet was promising his generation, ever so subtly, that the redemption will yet come: Yes David’s Sukkah had long-since fallen. But though it is punctuated with an אֶתְנַחְתָּ֑א, and therefore looks like the end of the sentence - nevertheless it is not the end of the sentence. It isהַנֹּפֶלֶת , ha-nofelet and not הַנֹּפָלֶת , ha-nofalet. Even though it is punctuated with an אֶתְנַחְתָּ֑א which grammatically resembles the end of a sentence - nevertheless, this is not the end of King David’s story! His history, his dynasty, his rule over Israel, does not finish with his Sukkah falling! There will yet be a continuation!
The corollary is in the penultimate verse of the Haftarah, describing the return to the Land of Israel:
וּבָנ֞וּ עָרִ֤ים נְשַׁמּוֹת֙ וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ
“They will rebuild desolate cities and inhabit them".
The word וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ is ambiguous: it could mean “and inhabit them" (as we have translated here), in which case the correct vowellisation should be וְיָשְׁבוּ.
Alternatively it could mean “and they will return", in which case the correct vowellisation should be וְיָשֻׁבוּ.
The pausal form of both of these words - וְיָשְׁבוּ meaning “inhabit them" and וְיָשֻׁבוּ meaning “return" - is וְיָשָׁבוּ, which is how it would be vowellised at the end of a sentence. However, in our verse, this word appears as וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ, with a זָקֵף-קָטֹ֔ן (zakef-katon). The zakef-katon should not change either וְיָשְׁבוּ or וְיָשֻׁבוּ to וְיָשָׁבוּ.
Why, then, does the prophet say וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ, using the pausal form, against the rules of grammar, as if it is the end of the sentence?
- I suggest that the Prophet is promising us that when the Jews return to Israel, when they both return to those formerly desolate cities and inhabit them, this will be as a פָּסֽוּק-סוֹף, sof-pasuk, the end of the sentence.
Our return to our formerly-desolate cities will be forever, our inhabitation of our formerly-desolate will be forever. Hence the vowellisation, וְיָשָׁ֔בוּ: with this, history comes to its קֵץ, its end, its conclusion.
Our Return to Zion will be our final destination, and so even though it appears in the middle of the sentence, in historical terms it will be the קֵץ, the end. After this there will be never again be any exile.
This is the meaning of the final Redemption. An appropriate Haftarah and an apposite Prophetic message indeed for the Shabbat between Yom HaAtzma’ut and Yom Herut Yerushalayim!