Haftorah Parashat Shelach

Speaker:
Date:
June 22 2006
Downloads:
3
Views:
552
Comments:
0
 
Yehoshua 2;1-24

Ignore Those Spies, They’re Not the Real Story
Despite the temptation to see our haftarah as merely a story of spies who contrast with the ones in the parsha by doing their job correctly and faithfully, the haftarah foregrounds Rahav so much that we would be remiss if we did not examine her role here.

The spies, whom tradition identifies as Calev and Pinhas (and who we would therefore assume are competent at the main task of spies, not being noticed), are detected almost as soon as they arrive in the city and then appear to be at Rahav’s mercy—it is she who saves them from the king’s men, tells them the information they need to bring back to Yehoshua, gives them their escape route, and tells them how long to stay hidden before returning to the main camp of the Jewish people.

Explaining the haftarah fully, then, must include some understanding of why the navi stresses her role so much. It seems relevant to note that the navi also mentions her profession, a “zonah.” Rashi sees her as an innkeeper, a description some might see as an attempt to whitewash Biblical history, except that he also thinks she was a prostitute. At a technical level, this explains why they would have gone to her, but I think it also explains her centrality to the story.

The Lower the Person, the More Impressive the Faith
Rahav will serve as an example of faith so pure that it overcomes everything about her background, turning her into a model of service of God. The lower she starts out, the more impressive the turnaround that her faith brings. An innkeeper—who apparently has a way of making a living—who yet decides to prostitute herself is lower than an ordinary prostitute. The gemara in Megillah also details her proficiency at this latter profession, lowering our expectations of Rahav further. She seems, when we meet her, to be so caught up in vice as to be irredeemable.

Her ability to turn away from that life so fully captures our attention. In Tanach as a whole, the term “zonah” signifies faithlessness, unwillingness or inability to hold steady to a relationship, so Rahav’s trustworthiness not only surprises us, it draws attention to that theme in the haftarah. Rahav learns the lesson of Sihon and Og’s loss, in sharp contrast to the king and the rest of the inhabitants. She protects the spies, makes a pact to which she adheres rigorously, and insures their safe return to the Jews, so that the message can get back to them as well.

The Purple String and Its Significance
To my mind, this also explains the end of the story, where Rahav is lowering them from her window. They decide to tell her at that point that they want her to hang a purple string at her window, and do so in a way almost calculated to frighten her, starting their statement with “We are free of the oath you made us take. Unless…”

Why do it that way, I have often wondered, and why demand it at all. Seeing Rahav’s faith as a linchpin of the story offers a part of an answer, that the spies were putting her to a final test. By leading off that way, they could see how much she trusted them, and by having her put a purple string in her window, she would already be signaling, to all who pay attention, her belief that the Jews would win this war.

This Time, It’s About Showing God’s Power
Understanding Rahav as a model of finding faith in Hashem shows how this spies’ mission contrasts with the original one. Those earlier spies took action on their own, and were preparing for a natural process of wars of conquest (as Ramban notes, defending the idea of spies and seeing the sin in how they executed their mission).

The spies of Yehoshua’s time take a more passive approach, relying on outside forces (read: Hashem and agents thereof) to succeed. Where the first plan of Conquest might have been for the people to finally take matters into their own hands, after watching Hashem take them out of Egypt, split the Sea, and appear to them at Har Sinai, their failure in the first spies altered reality, changing at least the first stages of the Conquest to one where the Jews were expected to completely rely on Hashem.

Why the shift? Perhaps because of the death of the generation that had seen the miracles of the Exodus. The victories over Sihon and Og were certainly impressive, but the Torah gives us no reason to assume they were supernatural. Since part of the point of this stretch of Jewish history was to make God’s power known to the world, the gap between the Exodus and the Conquest may have led to a need to have the Conquest, at least at the beginning, again demonstrate the possibility of Divine and supernatural intervention in history.

Back to Rahav
The centrality of faith might also explain why we care so much about Rahav. Megillah 14b assumes that Hulda was a descendant of Rahav because the later prophetess uses the word Tikvah, the word used here for the purple string. The gemara goes on to claim that 8 prophets, all priests (who are required to maintain the highest level of sexual purity) descended from Rahav, and that Yehoshua and Rahav married, parenting the girl who became Hulda’s ancestor.

The connection of Rahav to prophecy and priesthood seems to me to be part of tradition’s recognition that her faith transformed her from a woman sunk in the most physical and faithless of pursuits, ordinarily also a barrier to being able to recognize God or His Presence in the world. Having changed, she is the one who sees God in the events around her, and acts to further that Presence.

Our story thus contrasts to the parsha both in how the Jews and Rahav experience it. Whereas the original spies were unable to muster enough faith to believe that they could conquer Israel with God’s help, Rahav was able to understand how to act based only on the reports of much lesser miracles. She serves as a heroine not just for the haftarah but for much of Jewish history because her abilities and actions were in exact counterbalance to that earlier nadir. Shabbat Shalom.

Josh.2
[1] And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab, and lodged there.
[2] And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country.
[3] And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country.
[4] And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were:
[5] And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them.
[6] But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.
[7] And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate.
[8] And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof;
[9] And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
[10] For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.
[11] And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
[12] Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token:
[13] And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death.
[14] And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business. And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee.
[15] Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall.
[16] And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye go your way.
[17] And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine oath which thou hast made us swear.
[18] Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.
[19] And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him.
[20] And if thou utter this our business, then we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us to swear.
[21] And she said, According unto your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they departed: and she bound the scarlet line in the window.
[22] And they went, and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days, until the pursuers were returned: and the pursuers sought them throughout all the way, but found them not.
[23] So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all things that befell them:
[24] And they said unto Joshua, Truly the LORD hath delivered into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.

Parsha:

    More from this:
    Comments
    0 comments
    Leave a Comment
    Title:
    Comment:
    Anonymous: 

    Learning on the Marcos and Adina Katz YUTorah site is sponsored today by Judy & Mark Frankel & family l'ilui nishmos מרדכי בן הרב משה יהודה ע"ה and משה יהודה ז"ל בן מאיר אליהו ויהודית