Last week, we discussed the first blessing after the haftarah, the focus of which was the trustworthiness of the Divine word as expressed by the Prophets. This week, we will turn to the blessings which follow it. Here, the focus shifts away from the haftarah itself, and instead centers on what that “Divine word” in fact promised.
The themes are familiar ones. The second blessing refers to the return to Zion. The third blessing talks about Mashiach (the Messiah) and the restoration of the Davidic kingdom. And the concluding blessing brings together the themes of Torah, divine service, the Prophets, and Shabbat, all of which have been given to us by G-d for “holiness and tranquility, honor and elegance.” The blessing then expresses the hope that all humanity, indeed all life, will serve as a blessing to G-d. Finally, after these references to past and future, the blessing shifts us back to concentration on the present, the sanctity of the Shabbat (or holy day) we are celebrating.
As I mentioned, these themes are familiar ones. They are part of the Amidah prayer, as well as Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after meals, and they echo the wedding blessings, the sheva berachot, as well. Their ubiquity in traditional Jewish sources goes a long way toward explaining an odd quirk of Jewish liturgical history. Most non-traditional siddurim omitted these blessings. This seems counterintuitive precisely because the liberal movements put tremendous emphasis on the moral and ethical teachings of the Prophets, while downplaying the ritual and legalism of the Torah itself. So one would imagine that the valorizing of the Prophets would lead to the addition of blessings, rather than their omission.
The easiest way to explain this is that the emphasis on the Prophetic message in non-traditional Judaism was a distorted emphasis. It was a concentration solely on the universal aspect of the prophetic message, while ignoring the concomitant nationalistic aspect. As much as the prophets looked forward to the day when the whole earth would praise G-d’s glory, they looked forward just as much, if not more, to the independence and self-determination of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel. But this message was anathema to the early liberal Jews, who substituted political emancipation for the restoration of Zion.
In recent years, many of these berachot have been restored in liberal siddurim. In fact, some of their wording has been changed to recognize that the return to Zion is a glorious fact, not merely a sacred but desperate aspiration.
In other words, the words of the prophets were indeed “neemarim b’emet,” “spoken in truth.”