The haftara or (in Ashkenazic pronunciation) haftorah (alt. haftarah, haphtara, ) "parting," "taking leave"Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Siddur (orig. German 1868, English transl. 1978 (1978, NY, Feldheim Publrs) page 339, "The term Haftarah, derived from פטר [feter], 'to dismiss' [as in 2nd Chron. 23:8] is the designation used.... It is the concluding portion of the Schaharith [morning] service, and marks the 'dismissal' of the congregation from the first part of the service, as it were." Or feter can mean "to set free", as in 1st Chron. 9:33 and Prov. 17:14. Solomon Gaon, Minhath Shelomo: A Commentary on the Book of Prayer of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (1990, NY, Union of Sephardic Congregations) page 147; Israel Abrahams, A Companion to the Authorised Daily Prayer Book (1922, rev. ed., London) pages clvi-clvii; Israel Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels (1917, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1st series) page 4-5; it appears that in antiquity the Sabbath service ended with the haftarah so that the congregation was dismissed and free to go home. The word haftaro - הפטרה - is used in Midrash Rabbah of Genesis, sec. 69 (last paragraph), for "farewell speech". (plural form: haftarot or haftoros), is a series of selections from the books of Nevi'im ("Prophets") of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) that is publicly read in synagogue as part of Jewish religious practice. The haftara reading follows the Torah reading on each Sabbath and on Jewish festivals and fast days. Typically, the haftara is thematically linked to the parashah (weekly Torah portion) that precedes it.Goswell argues that the arrangement "suggests we should understand the books of Joshua - Kings as illustrating and applying the theology and ethics of the Pentateuch." Gregory Goswell, "The Hermeneutics of the Haftarot," Tyndale Bulletin 58 (2007), 100. The haftara is sung in a chant. (Chanting of Biblical texts is known as "ta'amim" in Hebrew, "trope" in Yiddish, or "cantillation" in English.) Related blessings precede and follow the haftara reading.
The origin of haftara reading is lost to history, and several theories have been proposed to explain its role in Jewish practice, suggesting it arose in response to the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV Epiphanes which preceded the Maccabean Revolt, wherein Torah reading was prohibited,Shlomo Katz, The Haftarah: Laws, Customs & History (2000, Silver Spring, Md.: Hamaayan/The Torah Spring) page 4. or that it was "instituted against the Samaritans, who denied the canonicity of the Prophets (except for Joshua), and later against the Sadducees." Another theory is that it was instituted after some act of persecution or other disaster in which the synagogue Torah scrolls were destroyed or ruined, as it was forbidden to read the Torah portion from any but a ritually fit parchment scroll, but there was no such requirement about a reading from Prophets, which was then "substituted as a temporary expedient and then remained."Matthew B. Schwartz, Torah Reading in the Ancient Synagogue, Ph.D. dissertation, Wayne State Univ., 1975, page 181. The Talmud mentions that a haftara was read in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hurcanus, who lived c. 70 CE,Tosefta, Megillah, 4 (3): 1, gives the haftarot for the Four Special Sabbaths. A baraita in Megillah 31a, which has later additions by the Babylonian amoraim who add the haftarot for the second days of the festivals (and who sometimes change the order of the haftarot as a result) – gives the haftarot for every one of the festivals, including their intermediate Sabbaths, as well as a Sabbath which is also Rosh Hodesh, the Sabbath which immediately precedes Rosh Hodesh, and Hanukkah. and that by the time of Rabbah bar Nahmani (the 3rd century) there was a "Scroll of Haftarot", which is not further described.Talmud Babli, Gittin 60a. Several references in the Christian New Testament suggest this Jewish custom was in place during that era.Acts 13:15 states that "after the reading of the law and the prophets" Paul was invited to deliver an exhortation. Luke 4:17 states that during the Sabbath service in Nazareth the Book of Isaiah was handed to Jesus, "and when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written," the passage being Isaiah 61:1–2. Unfortunately, the Greek word used there meaning "found" does not make it clear whether the passage read was fixed beforehand or whether it was chosen at random. See Also Matthew B. Schwartz, Torah Reading in the Ancient Synagogue, Ph.D. dissertation, Wayne State Univ., 1975, page 184, "In fact, the selection must have been made beforehand.", The earliest source for evidence of haftarah readings is the New Testament, but it has been suggested that Jewish authorities following the New Testament period very deliberately avoided using as a haftarah any selection of the Prophets that had been mentioned in the New Testament. Hananel Mack, What happened to Jesus' haftarah? Haaretz, Aug. 12, 2005. But D. Monshouwer, The Reading of the Prophet in the Synagogue at Nazareth, Biblica, vol. 72, nr. 1 (1991) page 90-99, suggests that the quotation of Isaiah 61:1 is not a haftarah reading but the beginning of a sermon or homily, and suggests that the occasion was Yom Kippur.
History No one knows for certain the origins of reading the haftara, but several theories have been put forth. The most common explanation, accepted by some traditional Jewish authorities is that in 168 BCE, when the Jews were under the rule of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, they were forbidden to read the Torah and made do with a substitute. When they were again able to read the Torah, they kept reading the haftara as well. However, this theory was not articulated before the 14th century, when it was suggested by Rabbi David Abudirham,"ולמה מפטירין בנביאים לפני שגזרו שמד על ישראל שלא יקראו בתורה" Sol Scharfstein, The Book of Haftarot for Shabbat, Festivals, and Fast Days (2006, NJ, KTAV Publ.) page 14; Samuel N. Hoenig, "Haftarah-Sidrah: Mirror Images" in Michael A. Schmidman, ed., Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander (2007, L.A., Touro College Press) vol.1, page 59. and has several weaknesses.Shlomo Katz, The Haftarah: Laws, Customs & History (2000, Silver Spring, Md.: Hamaayan/The Torah Spring) pages 4-5. Among the reasons for doubting, ancient sources list many oppressive acts by Antiochus but none mentions this, the reading of Haftarot also dates from antiquity in places that Antiochus never ruled, and it seems doubtful that any anti-Jewish villain would be so punctilious as to forbid only the Mosaic books but permit the Prophetic books. Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, The Haphtara Cycle (2000, NJ. Jason Aronson) page xxi, "But this [attribution to the Seleucid era] is a doubtful proposition as the Book of Maccabees tells us that the Jews were not permitted to even keep the Sabbath (I Macc. 1:45-50 and II Macc. 6:11) and that all scrolls of the Law were burnt (I Macc. 1:56). So all forms of Sabbath worship would have been prohibited in the Temple or outside of it. Josephus in his version of the events adds that all sacred books of the Law were destroyed (Antiquities XII:256). There is no reason to think therefore that the books of the Nevi'im [Prophets] would be allowed any more than the scrolls of the Law (Torah) themselves, and in any case it is hardly likely that such manuscripts were available to ordinary people." (emphasis in original). Also, Jacob Mann, "Changes in the Divine Service of the Synagogue Due to Religious Persecutions", Hebrew Union College Annual vol. 4 (1927) pages 282-284.
An alternative explanation, offered by Rabbis Reuven Margolies and Samson Raphael Hirsch (except where otherwise identified, this is the Hirsch cited throughout this article), is that the haftara reading was instituted to fight the influence of those sects in Judaism that viewed the Hebrew Bible as consisting only of the Torah.
However, all offered explanations for the origin of reading the haftara have unanswered difficulties.
Certainly the haftara was read — perhaps not obligatorily nor in all communities nor on every Sabbath — as far back as circa 70 CE: The Talmud mentions that a haftara was read in the presence of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, who lived at that time.Shlomo Katz, The Haftarah: Laws, Customs & History (2000, Silver Spring, Md.: Hamaayan/The Torah Spring) pages 120-121, citing Megillah 25b. Oddly, the Talmudic story is that the Rabbi found fault with the choice of haftara - but that selection is still read as the haftara for another parashah. Moreover, a study of the writings of Philo Judaeus, who died circa 50 CE, shows extensive reliance ("an overwhelming degree of correlation") on the same prophetic passages read as the haftarot for various special Sabbaths and holidays, which indicates that those haftarot were part of the liturgy decades earlier than the Talmud suggests; see Naomi G. Cohen, Philo's Scriptures: Citations from the Prophets and Writings, Evidence for a Haftarah Cycle in Second Temple Judaism (2007, Leiden, NL: E.J. Brill, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, vol. 123) page 69. A fragment from the 11th or 12th century in Cairo lists a few haftarot not now in use -- but also shows that the Torah readings used were different from what is now virtually universal (e.g. one Torah portion is Numbers 25:1-10, but the ubiquitous practice for the past several centuries is that one Torah portion, Balak, ends with verse 9, and the next week's, Pinchas, begins with verse 10). E.N. Adler, "MS. of Haftaras of the Triennial Cycle", Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 8, nr. 3 (April 1896) page 529. The Christian Bible indicates that readings from the Prophets - but not necessarily a fixed schedule - was a common part of the Sabbath service in Jerusalem synagogues even earlier than 70 CE.Luke 4:16-17; Act 13:15 & 13:27
Who reads the haftara Only one person reads the haftara portion.Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (German 1913, English transl. 1993, Philadelphia, Jewish Publ'n Society) page 146. This differs from the procedure in Torah reading, wherein the text is divided into anywhere from three to seven portions, which may be read by one person or divided amongst several.
The haftara is traditionally read by the maftir, or the last person to be called up to the Torah scroll.
Traditions varied or evolved with regard to which person could read the haftara. As an indication that, perhaps to make clear that the haftara reading was not the same status as the Torah reading, a minor (i.e., a boy not yet bar mitzvah age) was permitted to chant the haftara (at least on an ordinary Sabbath), and there were even communities where the haftara reading was reserved exclusively for minor boys. In recent centuries, Ashkenazi bar mitzvah boys, (now an adult) will read at least the maftir portion and the haftara.Macy Nulman, "The Liturgical and Musical Development and Significance of the Haftarah", Journal of Jewish Music & Liturgy, vol. 15 (1992) page 26; Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (German 1913, English transl. 1993, Philadelphia, Jewish Publ'n Society) page 146. In some other communities, the haftara could only be read by one who had participated in the Torah reading (in some practices, the maftir - the last man to have read from the Torah), or even the whole congregation would read the haftara to themselves from the available humashim - this evidently to avoid embarrassing a reader who might make a mistake.Macy Nulman, "The Liturgical and Musical Development and Significance of the Haftarah", Journal of Jewish Music & Liturgy, vol. 15 (1992) pages 26-27; Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (German 1913, English transl. 1993, Philadelphia, Jewish Publ'n Society) page 146.