This week’s Torah commentary, written by Hebrew Seminary Professor of Rabbinic Literature Rabbi Dr. Allan Kensky, has been anonymously sponsored.
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Too often in our communities, the reading of the Haftarah, coming after the public reading from the Torah, is given insufficient attention. In some congregations, the Haftarah reading is taken as an opportunity for congregants to take a short break from the service; in other communities it is skipped entirely. On closer examination, however, the Haftarah, the reading from the Prophets, is an important complement to our reading from the Torah. Often, the Haftarah picks up on a theme from the parashah, advancing an idea found in the Torah portion. At other times the Haftarah appears to be an early form of commentary on the Torah portion, often offering a new twist on the parashah. On special Shabbatot, the Haftarah is connected not with the weekly portion but with the special occasion being marked that day, highlighting the uniqueness of that Shabbat.
This week’s Haftarah, from Joshua chapter 2, closes the cycle that began with the debacle of Moses’ sending of the scouts, which occupies the greater portion of Parashat Shelach. After the negative report by the delegation of scouts, God sentences the people to wandering for forty years in the desert. This chapter in Israel’s history ends after Moses’ death, when Joshua, the new leader, sends spies to Jericho before he begins the conquest of the land.
As I see it, Joshua’s sending of the spies is a tikkun (תִּקּוּן), a ‘repair’ of the earlier failure of Moses’ sending of scouts. Unlike Moses, who sends out the scouts with great fanfare, Joshua sends out his spies quietly. Joshua sends only two men, not a delegation of twelve. And Joshua’s spies return with a clear, positive message: the inhabitants of the land are filled with dread at the approach of the Israelites, and “God has given us the entire land” (Joshua 2:24).
Center stage in the Joshua story is given to the woman who welcomes the spies and protects them—Rahab (רָחָב, a name literally meaning “Broad” or “Wide”). Rahab, a prostitute whose house is visited by the spies, is seen in both the Bible and in later tradition as a key figure who inaugurates this new period in Israelite history. My late wife, Dr. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, z’’l, a biblical scholar who highlighted the role of women in the Bible, devoted a full article to an appreciation of Rahab—“Reading Rahab” (found in the 1997 book Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg). As we approach the 20th anniversary of Tikva’s passing, I would like to share some of her teaching on Rahab.
In her article, Tikva pointed out interesting turns of phrase that connect the story of Rahab with other biblical stories. When Rahab hides the spies from the messengers of the king of Jericho who has heard that Israelite spies are in his city, Joshua 2:4 tells us vattitzpeno (וַֽתִּצְפְּנ֑וֹ, “she hid him”), using a word found nowhere else in the Bible. However, this unique terms is almost identical to another word that appears only once in Bible: vattitzpenehu (וַֽתִּצְפְּנֵ֖הוּ, also meaning “she hid him”), which Exodus 2:2 employs to describe the mother of Moses hiding the baby Moses from Pharaoh’s enforcers. By nearly identically echoing this singular term from the Exodus story, the author of Joshua is indicating to us that redemption is at hand. When Rahab negotiates with the spies to save her and her family, they tell her to hang a scarlet cord from her window during the Israelite attack and all in that house will be spared (Joshua 2:18). This is, of course, reminiscent of the Israelites placing blood on the doorposts of their homes in Egypt as God passes over their homes before the exodus (Exodus 12:7). It also hearkens back to the scarlet thread placed on Zerach, one of the twins born to Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38:28–30)—hinting to us that we should see Rahab as following in the footsteps of Tamar, Judah’s spurned daughter-in-law who pretended to be a harlot to gain his attention and who becomes a respected mother of the tribe of Judah. And in another surprising way the scarlet cord connects to the last section of our parashah, at Numbers 15:37–41, where we read the commandment of the tzitzit (צִיצִת, “fringes”) and their thread of tekhelet (תְּכֵלֶת, blue-purple).
Rahab also distinguishes herself in her affirmation of Israel’s God and her belief that God has given the land to Israel. In Rahab’s words, “I know that YHWH has given you the land and your dread has fallen upon us as all the inhabitants of the land have melted before you. . . for YHWH your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:9 and 2:11). Note the similarities of Rahab’s statement with Jethro’s acknowledging of God on his visit to Moses—“Now I know that YHWH is greater than all the gods” (Exodus 18:11) and to Deuteronomy 4:39, a line which enters our Aleynu prayer: “You shall know today and reflect in your heart that YHWH is God in the heavens above and the earth below, and no other.” This affirmation that we recite whenever we say Aleynu was uttered by the mouth of Rahab, prostitute of Jericho, herald of Israel’s entry into the land.
Jewish tradition thinks highly of Rahab. In the Talmud we find a midrash where Joshua marries Rahab. Rahab is seen as the ancestor of priests and prophets (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 14b). The New Testament goes further and sees Rahab as the mother of Boaz (Matthew 1:5) and thus an ancestor of King David and the messiah. As Tikva Frymer-Kensky concludes:
Rahab the whore is the outsider’s outsider; the most marginal of the marginal. She is the quintessential downtrodden from whom Israel comes and with whom Israel identifies… Her name, Rahab the broad, is emblematic of God’s inclusion of the many and of the permeable boundaries of the people of Israel. (“Reading Rahab,” pp. 66–67.)
I too read Rahab as a story of a person at the margins bringing redemption to the community. Rahab, the prostitute dwelling by the wall (as per Joshua 2:15), an “insider/outsider,” helps bring about Israel’s redemption. In this time in which we live, with rising antisemitism, I see the Jewish people, the quintessential outsiders, never quite true insiders, as having an important role in the future of humanity. And as one now concluding my third year on the faculty of Hebrew Seminary, I salute the Seminary for its wholehearted embrace and welcome of those who have long been marginal to our community—Jews with disabilities, LGBTQ+ Jews, women, Jews by choice, Jews of color, people who have come to Jewish practice and the rabbinate later in their careers. As we continue to extend this welcome and embrace, may we help bring redemption to this world!
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