Songs for the New Month - Haftarah HaChodesh

Ezek: 45:16-46:18
(Reform ends at 45:25)

“This month shall be for you the beginning of months.” Exodus 12:2

This is one of those Haftarot where I just have no choice but to ask myself: “why?” I don’t really get all this sacrifice stuff, and there is a lot of it in this parasha. It’s the same reason I don’t get Leviticus and struggle every year to make a leap toward some semblance of meaning.

I mean, I get why we read this reading on the day that we mark the beginning of the month of our redemption ראשית חודשת גאולתינו as it were. Fishbane points out to us that the additional passage for Shabbat HaChodesh is all about the paschal offering and the fact that this excerpt is about Ezekiel’s vision from Bavel of a restored Temple in a restored nation with a restored people offering sacrifice.

It is interesting that the decision for the explicit connection was one of the worship and the sacrifice; whereas the underlying connection is one of redemption and restoration. First we are redeemed from Egypt. This becomes the archetype of redemption. Then we long for redemption from Bavel, where we wept by the rivers. The words of that psalm: “how can we sing a song for Adonai on foreign soil” seem apt here as well. Ezekiel is not recommending that the Israelites worship this way in Bavel, but wait to be redeemed from their captivity and do it the right way in Jerusalem, which we must not forget.

But apart from all these connections, a comment in the Revised Plaut caught my eye. Plaut comments that this vision is a continuation of the vision that begins in chapter 40. Ezekiel has a vision on the 10th day of the first month, namely Yom Kippur. Interestingly, though, if we consider that Nissan is the first month, as the additional Torah reading tells us, perhaps he is only five days away from Passover, and the promise of redemption.

verse 3 tells us:

וַיָּבֵיא אוֹתִי שָׁמָּה, וְהִנֵּה-אִישׁ מַרְאֵהוּ כְּמַרְאֵה נְחֹשֶׁת, וּפְתִיל-פִּשְׁתִּים בְּיָדוֹ, וּקְנֵה הַמִּדָּה; וְהוּא עֹמֵד, בַּשָּׁעַר

He brought me there, and behold there was a man whose likeness was like that of copper. He had a thread of linen in his hand and a measuring stick, and he stood in the gate.

Who is this man made of copper? A little concordance work brought me to one conclusion: there is a lot of copper in the Tanakh. But there are a couple places we see it more than others, for example, in the construction of the Mishkan and its accoutrements in Exodus. We also see a lot of copper in another place, First Kings chapter 7, which recounts the building and adorning of Solomon’s Temple. Solomon sends for Hiram the חורש נחשת the bronze-caster. Hiram, mimicking Bezalel, casts the adornments out of the copper alloy bronze, a special skill. One can imagine seeing the gleaming temple from afar, its reddish hue of bronze shining and glowing, almost mimicking the fire above Sinai.

But what does it mean that this image of a Temple rebuilt is presented to Ezekiel from a copper man? Is the man Hiram? Is the man supposed to represent the Temple itself, or the glowing city of Jerusalem? Or is the man simply holy and made out of a holy material?

This man who speaks to Ezekiel is the guide back to the Promised Land. He has in his hands articles for measurement, ready to rebuild the Temple. He is the temple personified. He represents the receptacle for the hopes, dreams and prayers of the people. He gleams in the sun and reflects the majesty of Adonai to Ezekiel in his very essence.

In every generation, we must look upon ourselves as if from Egypt we were freed. In Egypt, the Israelites had Moses, whose face shown with the radiance of God. In Bavel, this gleaming copper figure arrives to inform the people of their eventual redemption.

Where is our person of radiance?

Last week, I thought about how the radiance on Moses’ face may be the radiance from doing the right thing and trying to stop God for exacting severe punishment for the Golden Calf. I thought about how we might be able to discover a little bit of that radiance in each of us. The question is still fitting, but I am not sure what we’re looking to the radiance to do.

I suppose, as we come nearer and nearer to our communal redemption, we might look for some personal redemption from those things in us from which we need freedom. What will make us each free? What will allow our faces to shine like copper?

We may not need to hear the specifics of a renewed Temple cult, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a man of copper * to help lead us on the path of righteousness?


*sorry, it's the best i could do...