We are in the Ten Days of Repentance period, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, of this new Hebrew year of 5876. It’s a period of introspection and the seeking of personal and community forgiveness. There are those who attend synagogue services for the experience, for the feeling of commitment, for the melodies, or just to be together with other Jews in the solemn setting of these High Holy Days.
A part of the Rosh Hashanah service, almost negligible, is the reading of the haftarah, the supplementary portion from either the Prophets or the Writings. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, that reading is from the first two chapters of the first book of Samuel.
Those lines describe events in Shiloh, the capital of the tribal federation prior to the first monarchy, concerning the birth of the prophet Samuel. His parents, Elkanah and Hannah, had been childless for years. Hannah, forlorn because she was childless, was then downcast with a feeling of rejection.
The family, as is their annual custom, trekked from the hill country of Ephraim to the tabernacle worship site, established at Shiloh. After their meal, Hannah abruptly rises and enters the area of the tabernacle to confront God himself.
Then Eli, the high priest, who was sitting nearby, observes her weeping. He watches her mouth but hears no sound. Hannah’s lips moved yet her prayer was silent. Eli presumed her to be drunk and berated her. “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Sober up!” he told her.
Hannah, who already had broken convention to pray to God, turned on Eli and replied, “Oh no, my lord! I am a very unhappy woman. I have drunk no wine nor any other strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to God.”
She insisted she was speaking “out of my great anguish and distress.” Realizing now what had transpired, Eli assured her that she could go in peace for “the God of Israel would grant what she had asked.”
MANY HAVE counted this episode as one of the more outstanding and impressionable pieces of drama literature of the Bible. A woman unfulfilled and forlorn, one who is severely disadvantaged in her wish to be loved by her husband, who is a bit insensitive to her plight. Her breaking tradition to enter the tabernacle court, talk directly to God, and her face-off with the high priest are additional dramatic elements.
But, still, why was this story chosen for the haftarah of the first day of Rosh Hashanah?
One reason provided is that Hannah’s situation naturally echoes the story discussed in the day’s Torah reading, which recounts Sarah giving birth to Isaac after many years of childlessness. Another is that the theme of birth is one of being redeemed and also parallels a sinner seeking to reprieve himself.
The Midrash on Berachot 29a suggests another link. “On Rosh Hashanah, Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were remembered” in that God decreed they would conceive sons. The Talmud supplies an additional element: that the nine blessings of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf prayer “correspond to the nine mentions of God’s name that Hannah said in her prayer.”
In other words, Hannah made a contribution to the Jewish people as a whole rather than just a personal request for a son. Her words of prayer were incorporated forever into the liturgy.
The Talmud views Hannah’s prayer as the prototype for all silent prayer, as noted at Berachot 31a. One’s voice need not always be spoken aloud. Hannah taught us to speak from the heart, with only our lips moving, our voice not heard.
And whereas Miriam praised God with drums and singing, in an ecstatic moment, Hannah set the parameters for private personal devotion of quietude. The link to Rosh Hashanah is that it is a day not only when we hear God’s call, but when God needs to hear our call. There is mutual communication.
The haftarah concludes with a second prayer, an expression of gratitude and triumph after the birth of a son, Samuel. Hannah extols God’s greatness, and declares that “God’s foes shall be shattered” and He “will judge the ends of the earth” and prophesizes the messianic redemption.
BUT I SUGGEST we should not forget Hannah’s husband, Elkanah. It was his custom to walk from his town every year to worship and offer a sacrifice at Shiloh. His actions provide us with an additional message in that haftarah.
The Midrash Yalkut Shimoni relates that Elkanah did not just travel to Shiloh by himself. He called upon those he met to go with him to Shiloh. He drew attention to his pilgrimage by sleeping in the town square, refusing their hospitality.
Every year, he took a different route to Shiloh to meet more people. Due to his efforts, the connection with Shiloh as a holy place was not severed, and the pilgrimage command was not abandoned. Shiloh and its holiness were kept alive.
On Rosh Hashanah, the haftarah that is read on the first day is two-tiered. Not only is there a spiritual and personal aspect, but there is a communal and territorial national element.
There are the heavens and there is the earth. There are prayers and supplications, and there is a specific Jewish geographical place. There is Shiloh, and there is the historic Land of Israel.
Judaism is not a disconnected experience of being with God just when we need him, but a long-lasting and permanent reality of Jews also being in their homeland, their country, at our holy places.
We are with God and with ourselves, in belief and in actions, as the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, rooted on our soil, despite words spoken at the Emmy Awards stage.
On Rosh Hashanah, we seek to return to God, to return to his commandments, to his spiritual guidance. As the haftarah read on the first day reminds us, we return physically as well, to the places of our land. We are called to go to Shiloh and to Jerusalem, for, as we were in the past, so will we be in the future.
The writer, a Shiloh resident, is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.