The Setting
The book of Amos is the third book in what is refered to as “The Twelve” or the Minor Prophets. The Twelve began with the book of Hosea, is followed by Joel and then by Amos. Amos and Hosea were contemporaries and have been dated to the reigns of King Jeroboam 2 of Israel (784-748 B.C.E.) and King Uzziah of Judah (769-733 B.C.E.). There is some disagreement about whether or not Joel lived during the same period.

Two events are referred to in the book of Amos which assist us in its dating. The first is in Amos 1:1 which states, “two years after the earthquake.” An earthquake was confirmed by Yigdal Yadin as a result of his excavations at Hazor. Additional sources mention a solar eclipse that took place on June 15, 763 B.C.E. This could explain the following reference in Amos 8:9-10, “I will make the sun set at noon, I will darken the earth on a sunny day, I will turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into dirges.”

Amos lived during a time when Assyria's influence was diminishing and as a result the Northern Kingdom (Jeroboam 2) underwent a period of expansion. Military conquests stimulated the economy, construction and trade increased, fortunes were made and most likely the unfair business practices that referred to in Amos occured.

The Theme:
In contrast with this morning's Torah reading, that proclaims we are a holy people, this haftarah reminds us that being “chosen” should not be equated with prosperity. God's love can only be maintained through living in a specific manner. If we fail to live up to these standards, the prophet tells us, we will be treated “just like the Ethiopians,” or, to say it another way, just like any other nation. This morning's haftarah is one of hope. It cautions us that we will be punished if we continue to act like all other nations but assures us that those who truly follow God's ways will be restored to our land and will “nevermore be uprooted”.

Amos's words reach out to those of us who witnessed the excesses of the past few decades and are cognizant of the global legacy we have inherited. We are reminded prosperity comes with moral responsibility and if disregarded will result in ruin and destruction.

This week's Haftarah commentary was written by
Rabbi Charles Simon,
Executive Director of the FJMC and author of
"Building A Successful Volunteer Culture: Finding Meaning in Service in the Jewish" Jewish Lights Publishing.

Translation of the Haftarah may be found here: http://www.jtsa.edu/PreBuilt/ParashahArchives/jpstext/

The FJMC weekly haftarah commentary is one of the few haftarah commentaries available on line. The USCJ through its Fuchsberg Center in Jerusalem has also been posting a weekly haftarah commentary for a number of years. We highly recommend it. If you are interested you can find a link on the left side of our weekly commentary and click through.

In 2003 the FJMC commissioned a Sefer Haftarah, a scroll consisting of all the Haftarot which follows the Haftarah order that appears in the USCJ and Rabbinical Assembly Torah translation and commentary Etz Hayim. The FJMC Sefer Haftarah visits a different synagogue in North America every week.This scroll contains vowels and cantillation and allows the haftarah reader to experience the Haftarah in a more personal way. FJMC also produces individual personalized Haftarot for those who wish to recognize a special occasion. Scrolls of Haftarot have been in use since the early middle ages.

Our head writer, Rabbi Charles Simon, has completed writing the commentaries for this year's haftarot. During our discussions, he has indicated that he does not wish to reuse the commentaries over and over again, as he feels that they should be written in a manner that is relevant to this year alone.
Each haftarah is in itself a prophesy of course, and as such was a commentary on the events of the times. To repeat the comments without updating and rewriting would not be as relevant as it should be. Rabbi Simon compares it to a pulpit rabbi repeating a speech. It’s just not done. So when this year is over, we’re looking to expand our content. The haftarot that have not been published; the holidays, the second of a double parsha, the haftarot that are put aside for special occasions, all will be written about over the next year or two.
What we really hope to do is expand into other areas of Jewish life, and “unravel the secrets”. We’ll explore other areas, places that you probably have not explored. We’ll probably get into some everyday items that don’t always get explained, we’ll try to teach you about things you may have seen or done but never known the “why” or “how” and we’ll talk about some issues that we are exploring as an organization; things like “welcoming the stranger” and “hearing men’s voices”.
Where do you come in? How about submitting an essay for publication? We’ll help you in the effort and we’ll do our best to get it into this letter. I hope that we can get to the point that we have so many to publish that we can have 2 or 3 in an issue.
Hazan Alberto Mizrachi, one of our editors, has signed up to do some work with us on music, and we’ll include a link to hear what he’s writing about. We hope to continue to excite you each week with something unique in the Jewish world, a well written commentary that asks you to think. We’ve been doing it now for 27 weeks now, and we hope to continue challenging you. If you’d like to join us as a writer, contact Rabbi Simon, Goldis David Goldis or Stan Greenspan and let us know.
Thanks for joining us in this adventure, we look forward to continuing!