Haftorah of Sidra Reeh

This Haftorah is from Sefer Yeshayohu, from verse 11 of Chapter 54 till verse 5 of Chapter 55.

1. This is the third Haftorah of Comfort of the Seven Haftorahs of Comfort, all taken from the Sefer Yeshayohu. (As a matter of fact, this Haftorah is the second part of the Haftorah of Sidra No’ach according to the Ashkenazzim. Please refer to HAFTORAH OF SIDRA : נח.) The promise of the happiness of HaShem with His Jewish People so beautifully described in this Haftorah is of course dependent upon the proper choice by the Jewish People to be faithful to HaShem and His Torah, with which the Sidra opens. There are a number of themes in this Haftorah, in which Yeshayohu tells of the future to come and just a couple of those themes are touched upon here.
2. Yeshayohu speaks of the time when HaShem will have brought the exile to an end. The Jewish People will have no reason to fear anyone. All the Jew-haters will have fallen low and anyone that would contend with HaShem’s People will fail in their plots. All those lies and calumnies cast upon the Jewish People throughout their long dispersion among the nations, will all be seen to be utterly false, the inventions of crass hatred and horrid jealousy. Those malevolent mischief-makers that had spread them will be shown up as the destroyers of peace and the enemies of goodness; retarded, backward, primitive.
3. The Novvi says that all those tongues that slandered us will be defeated. Perhaps in his words we today can see a portent of things yet to come. For it is interesting to see how the most pernicious lies invented against the Jewish People in the past, lies which cost our People hundreds of thousands of victims throughout the ages, are today acknowledged as utterly false. No sane person today honestly believes there is even a sliver of truth in the blood libel, in the charges of Host desecration or in the accusation of “deicide” (“killing a god” — what an absurd contradiction!) These lies stand today exposed as the cruel farces that they were, perpetuated through mock trials and investigations and inquisitions. (Today those calumnies are recognized as lies, yes, but sadly those innocent people who suffered unspeakable tortures and cruelties cannot be brought back.) The clear refutation of those lies can perhaps be taken as a signal to those who today utter lies against the Jewish People, that their modern-day blood libels will be similarly refuted and proved to be false. Those news “reporters” who maliciously and knowingly spread lies will be seen, not as the “political commentators” that they claim to be but as the relentless anti-Semites that they are. They too will be held up to ridicule in much the same way that the crude and sanctimonious liars of previous centuries with their primitive blood libels astonish and amaze any decent person today.
4. Yeshayohu reminds the Jewish People of their mission. HaShem says to His People: “See! I have appointed you as My witnesses, to teach G-dliness in the world; a prince and a leader of men you are to be. Nations that you have not known will run to you to enquire from you about HaShem. This is your mission, your task and your glory.” So it was and so it will be and so, we should always remember, is it supposed to be today, too.