Why is there BOTH Torah and Haftorah Portions?

Answer 1

Haftorah portions are important bits of the Torah and at a person's bar or bat

mitzvah, they read a Haftorah portion in Hebrew because it would take them

days to read the whole Torah, and the Haftorah just shows how fluent they are

in Hebrew and lets them read the holy Torah

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Thank you Jillait, now go to your room.

The haftarah is not a "bit of the Torah", it has no necessary connection to the

commemoration of anyone's becoming a bar or bat mitzvah, it's not a"fall back"

that they settle for because something else would be too long or too difficult,

and it's certainly not something that's stuck into the service to give someone

a chance to show "how fluent they are".

There have been times and places in the history of the Jews where the government

made it a crime to read the Torah during a Jewish service. Now you have to understand

that to those Jews in those times, this was a serious restriction ... something like

making it a crime to send a text with your phone, let's say ... and it made them very sad.

You also have to understand that in those times and places, a crime was not something

where you could get supervision, or a suspended sentence, or a few hours of community

service, or a $15 fine ... certainly not for a Jew anyway. If the Torah was read in your

synagogue, it was more likely that either the Torah or your synagogue would be burned

to the ground.

There was really not much they could do, and the most important thing about it

that we have to remember is that it bothered them. These were the people that

most of today's Jews are descended from, and it was important to them to have

the service in the first place, and for them to be there, and to be able to read the

Torah, so that people wouldn't forget what it is and what it's all about.

Couldn't they just pull the shades down and go ahead and read the Torah anyway ?

No, they couldn't. Because the same government would place people who looked

and acted like Jews in the synagogue services, to see and report what was going on

in there.

So here's what they did: For each portion of the Torah that they were supposed

to read on the Sabbath each week, they chose a chapter from the Prophets that

talked about the same subjects and events, and taught the same lessons, as the

Torah reading for that week, and they read that during the Sabbath service in the

place of the reading from the Torah.

The purpose of the haftarah was to remind people of the content of the Torah for

that week, so that they wouldn't forget it.

And that's what the haftarah is.