24 Elsie Stern
recitation of the haft arah provides a bulwark against complete reliance on
ritual, the recitation of the Leviticus text asserts that ritual actions are still
necessary, even if not suffi cient. Not surprisingly, the perspective on atone-
ment articulated by the lectionary unit as a whole resonates strongly with
perspectives articulated and developed elsewhere in the rabbinic literature
that argue that eff ective atonement includes both ritual and moral action.12
While the haft arah seems quite vituperative, it also plays a consolatory
role in the lectionary context. Within the canonical context, proper per-
formance of the ritual described in Leviticus 16 is crucial to the ongoing
maintenance of the relationship with God. However, during the period
of the development of the lectionary, this ritual could not be performed
because the Temple had been destroyed centuries before. Th e assertion of
the ritual’s necessity combined with its impossibility would certainly have
been anxiety provoking for post – Second Temple Jews. Isaiah’s assertion
that God will protect Israel if its members work to alleviate injustice and
oppression gives post – Second Temple Jews another means to maintain the
relationship with God even in the absence of the Temple and its cult. Th us,
through the strategic conjunction of texts and occasion, the framers of the
lectionary are able to make the biblical texts speak a message which is not
articulated fully in either text in its canonical context but is appropriate to
the historical reality of its audience and resonant with the ideology of its
rabbinic creators.
Th e sequence of haft arot for the weeks following the holiday of Tisha
b’Av provide another example of the way in which the creators of the lec-
tionary use biblical texts, strategically selected and arranged, to articulate
theological messages that are not articulated by the texts in their canonical
contexts. Th e holiday of Tisha b’Av is a day of mourning that in the rab-
binic and early medieval periods commemorated the destructions of the
First and Second Temples.13 While throughout most of the year, the haf-
tarot correspond to the parshiyot, in the three weeks prior to Tisha b’Av
and the seven weeks between the holiday and the festival of Rosh Hasha-
nah (the new year), the haft arot are linked sequentially to one another,
not to their corresponding parshiyot. In the three weeks leading up to the
holiday, the designated haft arot are texts of rebuke in which the prophets
scold Israel for its sins and prophesy the disasters that will occur as a re-
sult of them. On Tisha b’Av itself, the book of Lamentations is read, and
for seven weeks aft er the holiday, texts of consolation selected from Isaiah
40 – 66 are recited. As a whole, the ten-week sequence articulates a narra-
tive of sin followed by punishment, penitence, and eventual consolation