Mitokh HaOhel: Haftarot

Prof. Adina Levine Rydzinski

Ha arah for the First Day of Rosh Ha-Shanah:

e Story of Chanah and Divine Justice

The story of Chanah is a moving account of the power of prayer that seems to t exactly where it is placed – at the center of the Rosh Ha-Shanah liturgy. e plot is not a new one, as it echoes the stories of Sarah, Rivka, and Rachel in varying degrees – there is the bar-ren favored wife, a fertile rival,¹ and an adoring husband who proves

. While the text of the ha arah recounts simply that “her rival would frequently an-ger her” (Shmuel Aleph : ), the Midrash elaborates the multiple taunts of Peninah, Elkanah’s other wife. Rashi recounts that Peninah would say to Chanah, “Did you buy your older son a cloak today or your younger son a shirt?” Other midrashim add that Peninah would rise early and say to Chanah, “Aren’t you going to get up and wash your children’s faces so they can go to school?” At midday, Peninah would say

“Aren’t you preparing to welcome your children home from school?” When they sat

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Excerpted from "Mitokh HaOhel: Haftarot" (Maggid Books, 2011)

Haftarah for the First Day of Rosh Ha-Shanah

unsympathetic² until the barren wife is ultimately remembered by God and conceives a son.³ e narrative thus closely parallels the Torah por-tion that is read on Rosh Ha-Shanah when God remembers the barren Sarah to give her a son⁴ – and, as the Talmud recounts, both Sarah and Chanah (as well as Rachel) were remembered on Rosh Ha-Shanah.⁵

Yet, the story of Chanah rises above the accounts of the Matri-archs in the detail it provides with regard to Chanah’s prayer – and the accompanying narrative of Eli’s misunderstanding⁶ – and it serves as the source of many of the laws of prayer.⁷ While Rivka summarily asked “If

down to eat, Peninah would say to Elkanah “Give this son of mine his portion…You did not give that son of mine his portion,” thereby constantly reminding Chanah of her barren status (Pesikta Rabbati ). e Talmud, however, explains that Peninah had righteous intentions and sought only to motivate Chanah to pray (Bava Batra

a), a statement that is difficult to reconcile with other midrashim which state that Peninah was punished and lost two children for every child that Chanah bore (Rashi to Shmuel Aleph : ).

. Elkanah’s statement “Am I not be er to you than ten sons?” (Shmuel Aleph : ) is only slightly more comforting than Yaakov’s exhortation “Am I instead of God who has withheld children from you?” (Bereishit : ) and Avraham’s request “let Yishmael live before you” (Bereishit : ). e Malbim explains that Elkanah was simply stating that he no longer expected Chanah to bear children and wished to console her with his love as a substitute, since women are not commanded to procreate – however, such a sentiment instead prompted Chanah to rise up and ask God for a son.

. e Midrash recounts that Chanah was years old when she conceived Shmuel (Midrash Shmuel, ed. Buber, : ), making her the older than any of the Matriarchs when they conceived, and the same age as Chava when she gave birth to Sheit (Bereishit : ) and Yocheved when she gave birth to Moshe (Sotah a).

. Bereishit : – .. See Rosh Ha-Shanah b. . e narrative recounts that the High Priest Eli thought that Chanah was a drunkard

(Shmuel Aleph : ). is misunderstanding is somewhat perplexing given that Chanah is interpreted to have prayed in the model fashion, and presumably Eli was aware of the laws of prayer. See discussion in a for one interpretation of Eli’s mistake (Cf. Maharsha, Rashi).

. Indeed, R. Hamnuna exclaims “How many important laws can be learned from these verses relating to Chanah!” (Berakhot a). ere is some debate, though, as to whether the story of Chanah is the exclusive source for these laws, or simply one possible source – e.g., the Maharsha notes that these laws may also be derived from other sources.




so, why is this me?” and she “went to seek Hashem”⁸ during her struggle to have children, this ha arah recounts the full text of Chanah’s prayer, both before and a er the birth of Shmuel.⁹ e Talmud also notes that Chanah is the rst person to refer to God as “Master of Legions”¹⁰ – an epithet that merited her considerable reward¹¹ and which has since become part of our prayer lexicon.¹² Additionally, the very form for prayer is derived from this narrative – that one who prays should direct his/her heart toward God, and must enunciate the words rather than simply think of the prayer, but must do so quietly so that the benedic-tion is inaudible to others.¹³

However, Chanah’s prayer is not a simple supplication or an importuning petition that one would imagine is encouraged on Rosh Ha-Shanah. In fact, talmudic sources have infused Chanah’s prayer with a level of temerity, and a brazenness, that changes the tenor of the prayer from one of entreaty to one of a challenge to God’s Divine jus-tice. For instance, the Talmud recounts several objections that Chanah levied against God, in which Chanah challenged the justice of her bar-renness.¹⁴ e Talmud concludes that when the text states that Chanah

. Bereishit : – .

. Chanah’s song following the birth of Shmuel (Shmuel Aleph : – ) contains ele-ments of both gratefulness and praise for Hashem for having granted her a son, as well as prophecy for the future of the Jewish people (Radak, Ralbag).

. Shmuel Aleph : . . e Midrash relates that because Chanah “multiplied” God’s “legions” by calling

Him “Master of Legions,” God responded in kind and multiplied Chanah’s “legions,” i.e. her grandchildren and great-grandchildren (Midrash Shmuel, ed. Buber, : ).

. See Berakhot b. Maharsha and Radak note that the text many times refers to God as “Master of Legions” (e.g., Shmuel Aleph : ) but Chanah was the rst person to employ this term.

. See Berakhot a. e Talmud explains that the text “but her voice was not heard” (Shmuel Aleph : ) teaches that it is forbidden to raise one’s voice during prayers (Berakhot a). However, this only means that one’s prayer should not be heard by others; it should, though, be loud enough to be heard by oneself. (Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chaim : ).

. One of these challenges was that Chanah asked Hashem what the purpose was of her reproductive anatomy, if God had decreed that she be barren. See Berakhot b and discussion in a for other challenges.




prayed “al Hashem” literally, “against God,”¹⁵ that she had ung her words upwards toward Heaven without the proper respect.¹⁶ Similarly, the Midrash recounts that Chanah was punished for the content of her prayer – by adding super uous words to her prayer, Chanah shortened Shmuel’s life to years.¹⁷ With such a censured context, the selection of Chanah’s prayer as the model in the liturgy of Rosh Ha-Shanah – a day devoted to prayer and repentance characterized by the recantation that “prayer…gets rid of evil decrees” – is extremely perplexing. While Chanah’s request was certainly granted – she birthed the son that she sought – the level of criticism surrounding her prayer begs the question as to why the story of Chanah serves as a model for prayer.

One particularly interesting challenge that Chanah raises in her prayer is worthy of mention, as it both strengthens this question, and may ultimately help provide a solution. In interpreting the double use of the verb “see” in Chanah’s statement “if You will see (literally “if see, You will see”) the suffering of Your maidservant,”¹⁸ the Talmud explains:

אמרה חנה לפני הקב״ה רבש״ע אם ראה מוטב ואם לאו תראה אלך ואסתתר בפני אלקנה בעלי וכיון דמסתתרנא משקו לי מי סוטה ואי

אתה עושה תורתך פלסתר שנאמר ונקתה ונזרעה זרע.

Said Chanah to Hashem, “Master of the Universe, if You see [i.e. heed my prayer], ne; and if not, You will see [by other means]. I will seclude myself in front of my husband Elkanah and because I secluded myself they will have me drink the waters of the sotah

. Shmuel Aleph : .. Berakhot b. The verse should have read “el Hashem,” i.e. “to Hashem,” and therefore

the use of the preposition “al” means “against” (Ralbag to Shmuel Aleph : ; but see Radak [who states that “el” and “al” are interchangeable and both mean “to”]).

. Midrash Shmuel : questions the result of Chanah’s lengthy prayer, and that of lengthy prayer in general. Because Chanah said in Shmuel Aleph : “and he will abide there forever,” Shmuel’s life was limited to “forever,” which in the Levitical sense implies y years, since that is the end of the service of the Levites in the Sanctuary, and Shmuel was two years old when he was brought to the Sanctuary (see also Yalkut Me’am Loez).

. Shmuel Aleph : . Instead of simply stating “im tir’eh” – “if You will see,” Scripture uses repetitive language, “im ra’oh tir’eh” – “if see, You will see.”




[the suspected adulteress], and You will not make Your Torah a fraud, as it states: If the woman…be guiltless, then she shall conceive seed.”¹⁹

At face value, this passage seems to indicate that Chanah somehow “blackmailed” God with “making the Torah a fraud” as part of her plea for a child. Chanah threatened to become a sotah by seclusion, but not to actually succumb to the sin of adultery, becoming the innocent sotah²⁰ that the Torah promises “shall conceive seed” – thereby “compelling” God, as it were, to grant her a child. Far from the epitome of supplica-tion that “ein lanu al mi le-hisha’en ela el Avinu She-Bashamayim” – indi-viduals have no recourse other than reliance on God, Chanah appears to have believed that she had some power to enter into the sotah process, and treat it as a form of self-help, through which she would be able to conceive her son by other means if God would not readily accede to her request. In negotiation theory terms, Chanah had a , an alternative to a negotiated agreement,²¹ and therefore was not at the total mercy of God.

e difficulties inherent in Chanah’s “threat” are numerous. Most fundamentally, God is the same One who had promised that the cleared sotah woman “shall conceive seed” – and obviously, therefore, He has the ability to revoke that promise in situations where the conception is not deserving. To threaten the Omnipotent with inconsistency tears at the boundaries of credibility – God can easily carve out exceptions in the same way that He created the rule.²² In fact, the baraita itself fore-saw Chanah’s threat – that all barren women would simply choose to

. Berakhot b (quoting Bemidbar : ).. See discussion in a as to whether even the exonerated sotah can fully be termed

“innocent.”. is a term coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury, and which stands for

“best alternative to a negotiated agreement.” It is a critical tool for the successful negotiator as it arms the negotiator with the ability to simply walk away from the negotiation with an alternative remedy. See Roger Fisher and William Ury. Ge ing to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. (New York: Penguin Books, ),

. . Indeed, the exception for the unworthy played out in the converse: the sotah waters

would not work if the cuckold himself had been unfaithful (Sotah a).




undergo the sotah process – and therefore R. Akiva²³ maintains that the only “blessing” that would emerge for the innocent sotah is that her con-ceptions would improve, and not that she now would be able to conceive if heretofore she was unable.²⁴ According to R. Akiva, then, the double use of the verb “see” is simply the Torah speaking colloquially, and not that Chanah leveraged any such threat against God.²⁵

However, according to R. Yishmael, who maintains that the sotah process did result in newfound fertility for the guiltless woman, it is necessary to understand the rationale behind Chanah’s threat. Fun-damentally, Chanah portrayed the sotah process as a viable option for the barren woman, rather than a last resort – which seems contrary to certain talmudic statements that a man is “forbidden to warn” his wife and thereby initiate the sotah process²⁶ and that the sotah was marched around the Temple so that she would confess rather than have to drink the bi er waters, a process which would involve erasing God’s name.²⁷ In fact, while the textual source for the sotah, recounted in Bemidbar : – , appears to apply to two separate cases, where the wife has been de led

. Berakhot b; but see Sotah a for a reversal of the opinions of R. Akiva and R. Yishmael.

. R. Akiva gives four examples of these “improvements”: ( ) if she was accustomed to give birth with difficulty, she will now give birth easily; ( ) if she used to give birth to short children, she would now give birth to tall children; ( ) if she used to give birth to dark children, she will now give birth to fair skinned children; or ( ) if she used to give birth one child at a time, she will now give birth to two at a time (Berakhot b). ese somewhat minor improvements are presumed to not be worth the sotah’s public degradation (Maharsha), and possibly not “improvements” at all to those mothers who prefer dark-skinned children or single births.

. Berakhot b. See also Radak who explains that the Torah constantly uses this double phraseology.

. is is actually a ma er of an amoraic dispute in the Talmud Bavli (Sotah a- a). According to Reish Lakish, R. Yeimar, and the anonymous Tanna, the sotah process creates enmity between a husband and wife, and therefore a man should not initiate the process. On the other hand, R. Yishmael and R. Akiva maintain that he may, or should, warn his wife, in the spirit of preventing immorality. e Rambam ultimately holds that it is a mitzvah for a man to begin the sotah procedure (Hilkhot Sotah : ). According to this opinion, R. Yishmael is consistent in holding both that the sotah process is commendable, and that it promises fertility for the innocent (see also Penei Yehoshua).

. See Sotah a– a.




but there were no witnesses (the guilt without evidence case), and where the husband believes his wife to be guilty (the uncertain guilt case),²⁸ the Talmud read into the sotah process additional procedural prerequisites and was only concerned with one case: where the wife secluded herself with a man who was not her husband, before two witnesses and a er a warning.²⁹ Chanah’s supposed “threat” thus invariably involved the Biblical prohibition of yichud³⁰ – so how could the righteous Chanah, one of the seven prophetesses,³¹ have realistically made such a threat?³²

Perhaps the answer lies in a be er understanding of the sotah process itself. e sotah procedure has traditionally been understood

. See e.g., Bemidbar : (“and a spirit of jealousy had passed over him…and she had become de led, or a spirit of jealousy had passed over him…and she had not become de led.”).

. Only if the husband had warned his wife, “Do not seclude yourself with so-and-so” in front of two witnesses, and subsequently, two witnesses observed that she did seclude herself in privacy with that same man (for a period of time in which she could have been de led), then the sotah waters would be administered (see Sotah a). e source for the talmudic institution of these two seemingly additional

requirements – a warning and witnesses – is related to the textual difficulties of “ve-kinei,” literally, “and he was jealous” and “eid eiyn bah” – “there were no witnesses.” Even though kinah is normally used as a noun meaning “jealousy,” when it is used in this passage as a verb, the Talmud reinterprets it to mean “warning.” e source for instituting witnesses comes from “eid eiyn bah,” which seemingly means there were no witnesses, a scenario which conceptually the writers of the Talmud found difficult to accept, given that the husband would be subjecting his wife to this process without him having any legal standing. erefore, they limited the Scriptural “and there were no witnesses” to mean that there were no witnesses for de lement, but concluded that there must have been witnesses for something else – namely the warning and the seclusion.

. is reading is in consonance with the statement in Bemidbar : that the woman shall “bear her sin,” implying that even the exonerated sotah had commi ed some sort of crime.

. Megillah a.. Because of this difficulty, the Penei Yehoshua maintains that the entire dialogue is

merely a rhetorical device, through which Chanah argued for relativism in justice – namely, she questioned why she, the righteous Chanah, should be treated worse than a sotah who secludes herself with a man who is not her husband and thereby causes God’s name to be dissolved in the miraculous waters. In this understanding, the sotah process was not a realistic option but only a minimalist moral benchmark for Chanah to be measured against.




as the only Biblically-sanctioned ordeal, a form of justice in which the accused is subjected to a lethal natural phenomenon and merits salvation only by Divine intervention.³³ e miraculous waters of the sotah thus contained both the power to in ict and to heal, depending on Godly judgment.³⁴ Similar to where the accused was thrown into dangerous waters or passed through re, the sotah process is an example of an ordeal for the case of epistemological uncertainty, where the uncertainty of the wife’s de lement is determined by Divine intervention through the drinking of these waters. In this way, the sotah represents the Divine backstop so fundamental to Judaism’s justice system – that in factually indeterminate situations, God will ll the gaps.³⁵

e Divine interstitial justice is particularly contrary to the limitations of human justice as represented by the role of Eli.³⁶ e

. “Trial by Ordeal” is de ned as “a primitive form of trial in which an accused was subjected to a dangerous or painful physical test, the result being considered a divine revelation of the person’s guilt or innocence. e participants believed that God would reveal a person’s culpability by protecting an innocent person from the torture.” See B.A. Garner (ed.), Black’s Law Dictionary, th Ed., West Group, St. Paul, Minnesota, , .

. e exact nature of the physical in iction is disputed among the commentaries. Based on the text that states the “stomach shall be distended and her thigh shall fall away” (Bemidbar : ), the Rambam (Hilkhot Sotah : ) understands the sotah’s punishment to be a gradual death that begins with pain in the thigh area, and which spreads to the stomach, eventually causing it to explode. Other commentators understand it to be a less extreme punishment, presumably basing their position on the absence of the word “death” from the narrative, and assume that it is only a psychological illness. See e.g., Brichto, Herbert Chanan. “ e Case of the Sota and a Reconsideration of Biblical Law.” Hebrew Union College Annual, , , – .

. is conception of sotah as an ordeal designed to maintain criminal order in factually indeterminate situations is supported by the account in Shemot chapter , where, in a striking similarity to the sotah procedure, Moshe makes the potential sinners of the Golden Calf drink from a potion in which God’s name had been erased, in order to determine which of the group had sinned. ose who were innocent remained unharmed and those who were guilty had their stomachs blow up. e purpose of this “potion ordeal” as used by Moshe was to determine who the individual culprits were from among the mass of collective responsibility, since, much like the case of the sotah, there was no external evidence to convict the individual sinners (Avodah Zarah a; Yoma b).

. e Midrash recounts that Eli had been appointed to High Priest the very day of the narrative (Midrash Shmuel : ), and he served as king, High Priest, and head




Midrash explains that Eli believed that Chanah was drunk because he misinterpreted the Urim Ve-Tumim, the Divine communication via the breastplate, and confused God’s message of “kosher” with “drunk.”³⁷

e Talmud later recounts another mistake of Eli’s that was corrected by Shmuel, during which time Eli sought to decree upon the two year old Shmuel³⁸ the death penalty for rendering a law in the presence of his teacher.³⁹ Human justice is both fallible and unduly exacting, inher-ently restricted by actions, evidence, and rules, rather than considerate of spirit, intent, and thoughts.

In this sense, the sotah procedure falls under the Biblical rubric of “ki yipalei,” what to do when factual ma ers are uncertain. e sotah process is established, as are other rituals in Judaism, for the case of safek (judicial uncertainty). e sotah process is the default mechanism when tangible evidence is lacking, but the crime is not ultimately unpunishable. God, then, steps in to ll the gap where the human justice system has failed, to render a verdict on even those private ma ers that took place behind closed doors. By referencing the sotah process, then, Chanah was not herself threatening to become a suspected adulteress, but was simply asking God to step into the role of Divine ubiquity and account for those highly personal ma ers where human justice falls short.

Perhaps it is this reason that the prayer of Chanah is accorded such a central place in the Rosh Ha-Shanah service – because it repre-sents the idea that like the sotah, the individual can never escape God, even in the privacy of his or her own home. is is both a message of

of the Sanhedrin (Midrash Tanchuma Shemini ) – and therefore was, quite literally, the embodiment of human justice.

. e Divine communication through the Urim Ve-Tumim was polysemous, as it simply highlighted the le ers but did not indicate their order. Because the words

“kosher” and “drunk” involve the same Hebrew le ers, Eli confused God’s message (Kol Eliyahu on Shmuel Aleph pp. – ).

. Berakhot b links the dedication of Shmuel at two years old to this story. On the other hand, Ritva maintains that this entire incident took place at a much later point in time, a er Shmuel had grown up.

. Commenting on the celebration in the text (Shmuel Aleph : ), the Talmud recounts that Eli was searching for a kohein to slaughter the offering before Shmuel corrected him that even a non-kohein can slaughter sacri ces (Berakhot b). See Tzelach for a discussion of how Eli misunderstood the law.




atonement for those crimes that are unknowable to man, but also of sol-ace, since although human systems may fail, there is an ultimate recourse in God. As Chanah says, “For the Lord is a God of thoughts, and to Him are deeds counted” (Shmuel Aleph : ) – thus proclaiming that God looks beyond evidentiary lines in determining reward and punishment.

But there is a nal way to think of the sotah procedure, and one that Chanah presumptively requisitioned in utilizing it as protectionist legislation. e drinking of the sotah waters is intrinsically different than the traditional types of ordeals such as passing through water or carrying hot iron. In the la er cases, the physical danger is inherent in the activity and Divine judgment supersedes nature (guilty until proven innocent), while in the former, Divine judgment renders a nominal glass of water into a legal potion (innocent until proven guilty).⁴⁰ e sotah process is therefore not an ordeal, but a ritual, and not a form of justice in and of itself, but a request for Divine intervention through the mundane act of drinking water. In this sense, then, the sotah procedure is a form of justice not at all concerned with “ge ing the facts right,” but rather, in ending the con ict. It is the “torat ha-kina’ot” – “the law of jealousy,”⁴¹ that serves as recourse for a suspected wife, as vindication against a jeal-ous husband. It is as if both husband and wife have reached a stalemate and agree to resolve their differences by a Divinely-sanctioned ip of the coin. Perhaps it is for this reason that the sotah text contains an inten-tional ambiguity of her de lement both in the beginning⁴² and in the end⁴³ – not because the case is one of factual uncertainty, but because the truth does not ma er: e focal point of the procedure is its a ermath, its ability to have solved an otherwise unsolvable dispute and encour-age the continuation of society.

It is this view of sotah as a compromise, and a step toward marital and societal harmony, that Chanah embraced when she beseeched God to grant her a son. It is the school of thought that believes that pesharah

. See the analysis in Brichto, Herbert Chanan. “ e Case of the Sota and a Recon-sideration of Biblical Law.” Hebrew Union College Annual, , , – .

. Bemidbar : .. Ibid., :. Ibid., : – .




(compromise) is the highest form of justice⁴⁴; that rather than having “the law pierce the mountain,” there is tzedakah and chessed (charity and kindness) inherent in the law.⁴⁵ e point of the sotah, and Chanah’s prayer, is not a black and white issue of “did she or didn’t she?” – whether the issue at hand is that of commi ing of a crime or meriting of a child under the strict din (law). Rather, it is about God’s mercy, interwoven with justice, which distinguishes human justice from Divine justice, and for which God allows his name to be erased. Because without this aspect of compromise, societal harmony, and mercy within the law, there can be no Divine presence. is is the justice that we ask for on Rosh Ha-Shanah.

. See Rambam, Hilkhot Sanhedrin : (“every court of law that uses compromise consistently should be praised.”).

. See Sanhedrin b.



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Mitokh HaOhel: Haftarot

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