Illustration credit: Rivka Tsinman
Haftarah הַפְטָרָה
Yiftah is a גִּבּוֹר חַיִל (gibbor hayil, strong warrior) who saves Benei Yisrael from בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן (Benei Ammon) in this week’s haftarah.
Yiftah’s half-brothers are not kind to him, so Yiftah runs away from their home in Gilad. A while later, Benei Ammon threaten to attack, so the leaders of Gilad come find Yiftah. They ask him to lead their fight against Ammon.
“Oh, so now you need me?!” Yiftah replies. “Don’t you remember that you kicked me out of my home?” (Shoftim 11:7)
The leaders promise that if Yiftah leads the fight against Benei Ammon, then the people of Gilad will welcome him back and he’ll become their commander.
Yiftah sends messengers to the king of Ammon to try to come to an agreement that will prevent war. The messengers retell the story from Parashat Hukkat, about how Benei Yisrael, when they were back in the wilderness, had asked Moav, Edom, and the Emori to let them pass through their land to try to avoid fighting.
The king of Ammon isn’t willing to agree to peace (Shoftim 11:28). So Yiftah leads Benei Yisrael in war against Benei Ammon, and God makes Benei Yisrael victorious (Shoftim 11:32).
- Compare the story in our parashah (Bemidbar 20:14-21 and 21:21-22:1) to the way that Yiftah retells it (Shoftim 11:15-23). What do you notice? What’s the same, and what’s different?
- In both of these stories, why is peace the first thing Benei Yisrael try for before fighting? What can this teach us?
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