FJMC Sefer Haftarah: Preserving the Tradition
In the more than 40 years since my bar mitzvah, I have had the honor of chanting my haftarah at my own synagogue as well as in many communities where I was a Shabbat guest. Every time I review before the reading, I am brought back to my childhood and the hours of preparation for the big day. I remember the vinyl recording that I used as a model and the maftir booklet that served as my text. That booklet, so pristine when I began my studies, was dogeared by the time I reached the bimah that Shabbat morning.
I have since bought a new copy of the booklet and until a few years ago used it whenever I was asked to do the haftarah. But when I was privileged to read my haftarah from a newly commissioned sefer haftarah at a Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs retreat, the experience of chanting haftarah changed completely for me.
The sefer haftarah is a handwritten scroll, but because the precise and particular laws that govern the production and handling of a Torah scroll do not apply, it includes all of the vocalization and cantillation symbols and that enables readers to chant the prophetic lesson as was done generations ago. This scroll travels, and it has been used in countless synagogues across North America. I have read from it many times, both when it was in residence in my congregation and at various Men’s Clubs functions.
After seeing the FJMC scroll, the brotherhood of Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue in Toronto commissioned its own sefer haftarah. There was space to print a dedication before every haftarah, each portion was available for endowment, and each went very quickly. Some families honored their children or grandchildren becoming bar or bat mitzvah. Others honored a wedding anniversary, birthday, or other lifecycle celebration. Some chose to honor the memory of a loved one. A calligrapher wrote the dedications, and an artisan in the shul crafted a wooden breastplate and the yad (pointer).
Since most haftarot are chanted by b’nai mitzvah – our future leaders – the scroll itself was dedicated in memory of the children who died in the shoah. The top of the breastplate reads L’maan eyleh she’lo zacu (For the sake of those who did not have a chance). Each bar or bat mitzvah who chants the haftarah symbolically honors our future while simultaneously recalling the tragedies of 65 years ago. As the congregation celebrates, it also remembers.
Howard Morrison, the senior rabbi, commented, “Over the past year, we have begun a new tradition of taking the sefer haftarah from the ark and reading from it. The depths of meaning and purpose in reading from a scroll far transcend reading from a printed book.”
Hersh and Charlotte Muchnick expanded on the tradition. Hersh wrote, “There are a limited number of times in our lives when we can perform some act that directly may affect the lives of those who are closest to us.” All of the Muchnicks’ grandchildren were given a scroll with their bar or bat mitzvah haftarah portions inscribed with their English and Hebrew names and date. For Hersh, it was “one of the ‘kvell’ moments that no one can experience too often.”
Whether it is an entire scroll for use at the synagogue or an individual haftarah for a bar or bat mitzvah, both available through FJMC, the reading of these ancient texts becomes so much more meaningful and authentic when done with the sefer haftarah.
Dr. Robert Braitman is the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs’ immediate past president.
