Comments (0)Strength And Courage
Parshat Shemini Atzeret
October 9, 2009Rabbi Deborah Wechsler
Special to the Jewish Times
Strength comes in many forms. So says the Haftorah we read for Simchat Torah. In a beautiful choice of Haftorah, on the festival when we complete the reading of the Torah and begin it again, the rabbis chose for the prophetic reading the opening chapter of the book of Joshua.
Among the reasons suggested for this choice are the ancient custom of beginning the reading of the prophetic books anew, the same as we do the Five Books of Moses, and highlighting the shift in leadership and transmission from Moses to Joshua and from Revelation to Tradition.
If one had to choose a key phrase from the chapter, it would surely be “hazak ve ematz,” generally translated as “be strong and of good courage.” It appears four different times in this haftorah reading
It is a command that Joshua adopted from his predecessor, Moses, who several weeks ago exhorted the Israelite people with the same words. As Moses’ death nears, he commands Joshua to be strong and of good courage. When Joshua does the same at the beginning of his prophetic book, it provides a familiar verbal refrain to a people who are no doubt feeling adrift and out of sorts without their accustomed leader.
In modern times, this command began to be heard once again during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The phrase hazak ve ematz became something of a mantra in Israel. It was featured on posters, signs and bumper stickers, as Israelis united behind the Israel Defense Forces in their fight to defend Israel against attack.
The need to find strength, both physical and spiritual, is a perennial theme in our sacred texts and in the texts of our lives. Several years ago, our congregation honored a woman as Kallat Maftir who was going through an extreme physical ordeal. Faced with a life-threatening illness, she accepted the honor and read the Haftorah from Joshua beautifully. While being congratulated after her honor and recitation, she shared her insights about the nature of strength. In preparing the trope, she noticed that each of the four times that the phrase appeared, it did so with different trope, different notes. She said that she took much comfort in the understanding of the masoretes (who assigned the trope to the words) that strength could come in different forms.
Sometimes, the phrase was read with a wavering munach zakef katon note, sometimes it was read with a high hopeful kadma ve azla note, sometimes it was read with the plain brusqueness of a tipha etnakhta note and lastly it was read with a final triumphant sof perek note. Her explanation brought tears to my eyes. When I looked again at the Haftorah she had just completed, I found that her drash about the trope extended even unto Joshua’s placement of the commands.
There is a time that hazak ve ematz comes at the beginning of a verse and a time when it comes at the end; a time when it comes in the middle and a time when it serves as grand conclusion. Again, we have an understanding by Joshua and the rabbis that the kind of strength we need at the beginning of an ordeal is different from the kind of strength we need to sustain us in its midst and different from the kind of strength it takes to see something through to its finish.
What a wonderful Haftorah with which to begin our new year: a prayer from our tradition that we find strength in whatever form we need as our year takes its shape.
Rabbi Deborah Wechsler serves Chizuk Amuno Congregation.-