Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Copyright 2017 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

King David was now old, advanced in years; and though they covered him with bedclothes, he never felt warm. (1 Kings 1:1)

Greetings!

I have been on commentary hiatus too long and I hope to be back more consistently. The portion Chayei Sarah is a good one for jumping back into the waters, as the narrative is rich with opportunities for reflection and application. The Torah portion is mostly the story of Avraham sending his servant to find a wife for Avraham’s son Yitzhak, in order to secure a more proper heir and thus a legacy. These themes continue in the haftarah, which begins as King David is an old man, shivering in his bed. King David, like Avraham, has to secure his heir and legacy before he dies.

We’ll leave a full compare-and-contrast of the two stories for another year and just focus on the first verse of the haftarah, quoted above. This verse seems simple enough but elicits some interesting commentary. One view from the medieval scholars is straightforward: the verse mentions blankets being insufficient because blankets can’t warm by themselves, they can only ward off the cold air. So if the king is not generating his own warmth, the blankets aren’t enough. Rashi, on the other hand, quotes an older midrash from the Talmud to draw a moral lesson about conscience and its consequences:

Rashi: he never felt warm– Our Rabbis said, “All who scorn clothing do not benefit from them in the end (Berakhot 62b 30-31)”- because he ripped of the corner of Saul’s coat [he could not become warm through clothes]. And in the Midrash Aggadah [it says]: Rav Shmuel the son of Nakhmani said, “When David saw the angel standing in Jerusalem with his sword in hand, his blood went cold from fear (See Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 43)”. (Translation from Sefaria.)

Rashi brings two different commentaries here, but they work together. In the second comment, Rashi seems to be saying that when a person sees death, or perhaps mortal danger, the blood runs cold from fear. The implication, as I understand it, is that David knows that his time is short and is cold from the fear or vision of impending death. Now, one could say that David was a brave warrior, who fought the giant with only a slingshot, and thus death should not scare him. Yet as a warrior he could have confidence in his own abilities and convince himself that he could defeat his enemy, but not even a king can defeat time and mortality.

What about Rashi’s first comment? This hearkens back to the struggle between David and Saul, the first King of Israel. Saul pursued David and his men, but when Saul went into a cave in which David was hiding, David sneaked up on him and cut off the corner of his garment as a way of proving to Saul that he could have killed him- but didn’t, and thus was not truly an enemy. (See here for full text.) Rashi quotes the Talmud to the effect that because David treated “clothing”- that is, Saul’s robe- with contempt, in the end “clothing”- that is, the bedclothes- could not avail him.

Well, OK, but David only cut the corner of Saul’s robe in order not to hurt him- surely it was better to cut the robe than to cut a person! So some rabbis say it was Saul’s tzitzit or ritual fringes that David cut, and thus he despoiled a holy garment, which in turn leads to his inability to enjoy warm garments in old age. In this reading, David’s sin was taking something holy- the fringes on the corner of Saul’s robe- and treating them with disrespect in order to make a rhetorical or political point in his dispute with Saul.

That’s a powerful image for this day and age, when so many of our shared values and symbols are mere objects in our partisan battles.  Another way we can understand Rashi’s two comments is contrasting the satisfaction of material goods versus the inherent good of a unburdened conscience. Think about it this way: David achieved power, fame, glory, riches and status, but at the end of his days, it was not material wealth- the blankets- that could comfort him. In fact, they left him cold, perhaps because he knew, on a deep level, that his riches were achieved at least partially by defeating and dethroning Saul, his mentor and father-in-law, in the first of David’s many wars. Thus Rashi’s two comments work together: David was cold from his vision of impending death and unable to derive “warmth,” or comfort, from his riches because he understood the moral cost of obtaining them.

Framed this way, I think Rashi’s comments show David’s chill as a cautionary tale, especially because the chapters that follow will show David’s family torn apart (not for the first time) by a struggle over those very same riches and power that bring David no warmth on his deathbed.

For us, the question becomes: how shall I live now such that I can someday die with peace of mind, sustained and warmed by love? What conflicts or hardness of heart can I now repair so I can live with myself until the end of my days? This is difficult, no doubt, but is there anything more important?

The views expressed are my own and do not reflect that of Vassar Brothers Medical Center or Health-Quest.

Copyright 2015 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

This is the line of Yishmael, Avraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Avraham. . . .(Bereshit/ Genesis 25:12)

Good morning! Last week we discussed how the Torah emphasizes the moral necessity of attending to the suffering of the maidservant Hagar and her son. Yishmael is the first born of Avraham, but not the son of his wife Sarah, so he and his mother are expelled, but not forgotten. In this week’s parsha, which is mostly concerned about finding a wife for Yitzhak (who will continue Avraham’s line from Sarah) we have a genealogy for Yishmael and his descendants, starting with the verse above.

You’ll notice that the verse above is very specific about who Yishmael is and who his parents were; the verse emphasizes that Hagar was his mother, and she was an Egyptian maidservant. Well, we knew that from last week, so why be so particular about Yishmael’s lineage now?

Among the various rabbinic commentaries, there are two answers at odds with each other, one of which I like better than the other. First, we have a fellow named Samuel ben Meir, otherwise known as Rashbam, who compares the verse above, which says that Yishmael is Hagar’s son as well as Avraham’s, to verse 19, in which Yitzhak is specifically listed as Avraham’s son without mention of his mother. Rashbam thinks this is to disconnect Yishmael from the line of Avraham and emphasize that we should think of Yishmael as the son of Hagar, the Egyptian servant girl, not the son of his father.

Another medieval commentator, David Kimchi, AKA Radak, thinks the exact opposite: that the Torah goes out of its way to remind us that  Yishmael is Avraham’s beloved first born, and that despite his mother being a lowly servant girl, Yishmael was blessed by God as a son of Avraham and given much success.

Now, to be clear, neither of these views is espousing what we’d call a meritocratic perspective on Yishmael’s blessings. Both views see lineage as important, but Radak’s is a more open and hopeful interpretation, which we can build on even further. We might say: of course Yishmael is not limited in his blessings by being Hagar’s son. There is certainly a strain of Jewish thinking, not limited to the ancients, which places great weight on lineage, class and inherited privilege, but there is another which sees all human beings as made in the image of God and in a fundamental way equal to each other.

I’m probably pushing the text a bit too far, but that’s what I see in Radak’s reading. Mentioning Avraham, Yishmael and Hagar in the same verse draws our attention to their common humanity, a lesson sorely needed in this time of great ethnic, religious and political division. Yes, Judaism sees the line of the covenant coming through Yitzhak, and yes, Islam sees it coming through Yishmael, but according to Radak, the sons of Avraham make one larger family. Would that we all saw each other as family across the divisions and conflicts of humankind!

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

The views expressed are my own and do not reflect that of Vassar Brothers Medical Center or Health-Quest.

Copyright 2014 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Copyright 2013 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Copyright 2010 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayyei Sarah

Sarah died in Kiriath-arba-now Hebron-in the land of Canaan; and Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her. . . (Bereshit 23:2)

At the beginning of this weeks’ parsha, Sarah, Avraham’s wife, dies near Hevron [Hebron] and Avraham goes to great lengths to purchase a burial site for her. This became known as the Cave of the Machpelah, or “doubled cave,” where according to the Torah all the Matriarchs and Patriarchs- except for Rachel- were buried.

Today, there is a building over those caves which house a mosque and a synagogue- parts of this shrine date from the medieval period, if not earlier. Surrounding the Machpelah is a city of about 120,000 people, mostly Arab, with a small Jewish settlement in the heart of the city. Just outside Hevron is a much larger Jewish town, Kiryat-Arba, mentioned in the verse above and now a busy community of thousands.

I was last in Hevron in 1998, and it was a confusing experience. I was thrilled to be in the places where Avraham walked, and being in the Machpelah helped me understand and truly feel the Jewish history embedded in that sacred place. On the other hand, Hevron is the center of much controversy: the Jewish enclave in the heart of the city was surrounded by barbed wire and guards and relations between the Jewish residents and their Arab neighbors was tense, at best, with violence a regular occurrence.

As far as I know, the basic dynamics in Hevron haven’t changed much in the past 12 years, and while there are, of course, widely differing narratives and claims on the city, my point today is a simple one: it’s easy when reading the Torah to imagine holy sites, connected to our ancestors, and feel that deep connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, our historic homeland. It’s much harder to remember that the holy sites of the Torah are today places where real people live complicated lives. There is the eternal Hevron, the site of Avraham’s purchase from Ephron the Hittite, and there is the earthly Hevron, where conflict between Avraham’s children is exacerbated by poor leadership and fiery extremism on both sides.

To make this distinction is not to give up any claim or belief; it is simply to acknowledge that history produces complex outcomes, and rights should sometimes be exercised with wisdom. I have my personal perspectives on the situation in Hevron, but I’d rather you found your own, and you might start at this page, put together by rabbinical students for the purpose of helping people understand  various aspects of the city. The site creators have their own leanings (everybody does), but you’ll find links to various Jewish and Arab websites and sources of information, along with divrei Torah and text resources here.

My prayer is that someday soon, all of Avraham’s children will celebrate in Hevron- and all across the world- in peace and joy.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Shalom Friends- when last we left our patriarch Avraham, he was sitting at the door of his tent, just waiting for strangers to pass by so he could perform acts of hesed/generous-compassion.

This week, we fast-forward some years and Avraham has just buried Sarah, his wife. Yet after the burial, we Avraham is described as both blessed, and yet lacking:

“Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. . . . .” (Bereshit/Genesis 24:1)

The Torah may describe Avraham as blessed bakol, or “with everything” [maybe “in everything,” or “in all things,” as above, the JPS translation] but Avraham apparently doesn’t feel that way, because in the very next verse he’s making his chief servant swear an oath to go get his son Yitzhak a wife from his home country. There are many, many interpretations of what bakol means; after all, if Avraham was blessed with everything possible, he wouldn’t have to ask his servant to go on a mission to help bring back a daughter-in-law. Our friend Rashi addresses this paradox by pointing out that bakol has the same numerical value as “son,” and thus reads the verse as saying that “since [Avraham] was blessed with a son, he had to get a wife for him.”

Rashi’s interpretation – that Avraham’s blessing of a son required him to help Yitzhak find a wife- is interesting because of how this phrase, bakol, is quoted in the Birkat Hamazon, or blessing after the meal. In a section in which we call God the “Merciful One,” we ask for blessing for ourselves and all who are gathered at the meal :

“Just as God blessed our ancestors Avraham Yitzhak and Yaakov, “in all things,” “by all things,” with “all things,” so may we all be blessed together with a complete blessing.”

[Note: Yitzhak and Yaakov also got their own blessings of kol or “everything;” cf. Bereshit 27:33 and 33:11. We’ll deal with that another time, along with the version of the text which includes the matriarchs.]

So here’s one way to look at it: just as Avraham’s blessing of a son evoked an obligation towards that son, so too, when we ask to be blessed like Avraham, bakol, we might think about how our the blessings we have can be oriented towards others. Rather than simply be thankful- no small task!- we might try to remember that Avraham’s greatness was not only that he was blessed “in all things,” but that he wanted to share that blessing with others.

That, in turn, is what it means to have a bracha shelemah– a “complete” or “whole” blessing, for how can we have everything if we don’t have the opportunity to practice generosity and compassion? We are whole when we give, and our blessing is complete when it is extended beyond ourselves.

Shabbat shalom,

RNJL

P.S.- Here is a drasha I wrote some years ago on the same verse, and here is a third interpretation (but referencing some of the same texts.)

If you want the text of the entire parsha, you’ll find it on hebcal, and if you want the entire text of the blessing after the meals with translation and transliteration, there’s a great download here.

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Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

This week we read the Torah portion Chayei Sarah, which deals with the
death of Sarah and Avraham’s subsequent efforts to find a wife for his
son Yitzhak. In the haftarah, another patriarch, King David, also has
to make arrangements for the orderly transition of generations- but he
does so in reaction to a palace plot by one of his sons to take the
kingship from another.

You can read the details of how the plot is foiled in the second link,
below, but what is interesting to me is the prologue to the whole
story- which is actually the prologue to the entire Book of Kings,
since our haftarah starts with chapter 1, verse 1. In this prologue to
the palace intrigue, the elderly King David is cold and weak, and his
advisers call for a young girl to lay with him to warm him:

“King David was now old, advanced in years; and though they covered
him with bedclothes, he never felt warm. His courtiers said to him,
‘Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, to wait upon Your
Majesty and be his attendant; and let her lie in your bosom, and my
lord the king will be warm.’ So they looked for a beautiful girl
throughout the territory of Israel. They found Abishag the Shunammite
and brought her to the king. The girl was exceedingly beautiful. She
became the king’s attendant and waited upon him; but the king was not
intimate with her.” (1 Kings 1:1-4)

What strikes me is not so much the contrast between this image of
David and early stories of his military and physical powers, but the
contrast between one’s expectations regarding how a family might care
for an elderly patriarch and the lonely man portrayed in these opening
verses. King David had wives, children, and grandchildren- surely one
of them could have stayed by his side to keep him warm? Where is
David’s family when the stranger is called in to lie down with him?
The scene recalls David’s taking of Bathsheva, in that a beautiful
woman is regarded as little more than an object for the King’s
service, yet in this case, it’s not about sex- it’s about an intimate
act of caregiving, now given to strangers.

I read this short passage as emotional background for what follows: a
family divided over power, legacy, and privilege. Perhaps the prologue
shows us that a man who has lived his life exercising power over
others has little hope of being cared for by his loved ones when his
efficacy wanes. David’s power was in his body, his courage, his
cunning, his charisma, his daring, and his strength. Yet when power
fades, love remains, but only if it is planted by countless small acts
over a lifetime.

It seems to me that David’s family, squabbling over the succession,
is doing what their father taught them to do by his example, rather
than doing what he most needs at the end of his life. Thus our
haftarah poses not only a contrast with Avraham, but a challenge to
the rest of us: how shall we live such that peace follows our passing?

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Greetings from the Mid-Hudson Valley, where your humble correspondent
and only a select few other people are celebrating the valorous Red
Sox. . . . .but I digress, and we haven’t even started yet. Baseball
is on hiatus till next spring, but Torah study is a year-round
endeavor. This week’s portion is Chayei Sarah, which begins with the
death of Sarah and ends, more or less, with the death of Avraham.
After Avraham’s death, his son, Yitzhak, is blessed by God:

“After the death of Avraham, God blessed his son Yitzhak. And Yitzhak
settled near Beer-lahai-roi.” (Bereshit/Genesis 25:11)

Now, perhaps the simple meaning of this verse is to show that Yitzhak
is inheriting the blessing of his father’s covenant, but many
commentators (including our friend Rashi and our Conservative Etz
Hayim commentary) see God’s “blessing” of Yitzhak as directly
connected to his status as a mourner for his father. That is, the
“blessing” was really the comforting and consolation extended toward a
mourner. The Talmud (Sotah 14a) links God’s “comforting” of Yitzhak
with the example of visiting the sick that we discussed last week,
deriving both from a verse in D’varim/Deuteronomy:

“You shall go in the ways of the Lord your God, and revere the Holy
One and the Holy One’s commandments. . . (D’varim 13:5, my translation.)

Again, as we discussed last week, the idea of “walking in God’s ways”
means to emulate or manifest in our lives the compassionate ways of
being that we understand as holy. The mitzvah of “nichum avelim,” or
comforting the mourners, is not a separate mitzvah in itself but is
part of the general command to be compassionate and generous as we
believe God to be- which is to say, to the extent that we are
compassionate, generous and caring, we are true to the Image of God
within each of us.

However, although the mitzvah to “go in God’s ways” is a general one,
there are practical guidelines for the specific ways we practice it.
In the case of nichum avelim, this would include the way we greet
mourners (or, more precisely, allow them to greet us), the way we
conduct ourselves in their presence, what we bring if it’s a visit at
home, how we address their pain, and so on.

An excellent set of guidelines on how to comfort mourners can be found
below, but if I had to sum up Jewish wisdom on the topic in just a few
words, I might say: when it comes to offering consolations, less can
be more. That is, one’s presence is usually the greatest consolation;
many words or big piles of food or gifts are sometimes incongruous
with the mourner’s more stark and introspective state. To paraphrase
Woody Allen, perhaps 80% of the mitzvah is just showing up.

After the death of Avraham, God blessed Yitzhak- it is, in fact, a
blessing to be consoled by friends and community when life brings
loss, as it inevitably will. Judaism doesn’t pretend that life never
hurts; rather, Judaism gives us the mitzvah to bring the blessing of
love and companionship where there is pain and grief. The Holy One
blessed Yitzhak; it’s up to us to bless each other.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Greetings on a blustery Thursday! As the fall winds pick up, the book
of Bereshit continues its history of the first family of the Jewish
people: Sarah dies, Avraham sends his servant out to find a wife for
Yitzhak, Rivka comes back with the servant to marry Yitzhak, and even
Avraham marries again and has more children.

In what is probably the verse with the most Freudian implications of
any in the Torah, Yitzhak’s relationship with Rivka is described as
bringing him comfort after the death of his mother:

“Yitzhak then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he
took Rivka as his wife. Yitzhak loved her, and thus found comfort
after his mother’s death.” (Bereshit/Genesis 24:67)

Lest you think that the Oedipal overtones of describing the marital
home as “his mother’s tent” was lost on the ancient commentators,
here’s how Rashi brings an older midrash [imaginative interpretation]
on this verse:

“To the tent of Sarah his mother. . . . He brought her to the tent,
and behold, she was Sarah his mother. That is, she became the likeness
of Sarah his mother, for as long as Sarah was alive, a candle burned
from one erev Shabbat to the next, there was a blessing in the dough,
and a cloud was attached to the tent. When she died, [these things]
ceased, and when Rivka arrived, they resumed.”

At this point it would be almost too easy to analyze Yitzhak’s love
for Rivka as unresolved longing for his mother, but when we return to
the midrash and read it a bit more closely, I think the message is
much more about the journey of grief and healing than about sexuality
and its discontents. My reading of Rashi’s comment is based on the
three “miracles” which blessed the home when Sarah was alive: light
from Shabbat to Shabbat, “blessing in the dough,” and a cloud over or
attached to the tent.

The light from Shabbat to Shabbat seems to represent joy- a Shabbat
candle itself is about bringing beauty and honor to the day, as eating
the Shabbat meal in darkness (as our ancestors did before electricity,
if they didn’t light a candle) was not a happy, uplifting experience.
“Blessing in the dough” represents enjoying life’s simple pleasures,
like good food on the table, whereas the last item on our list, the
“cloud,” seems to be a reference to the “clouds of glory” which filled
the Mishkan [portable Sanctuary] and were a visual metaphor for the
Divine Presence. [Cf. Exodus 40:34]

Now let’s re-read Rashi; I think what he’s getting at is that after
Sarah died, Yitzhak went through a period where he could no longer
experience joy, pleasure, or spirituality- which are exactly what many
people go through in a period of grief, loss, or sadness. Things that
used to be fun can seem meaningless, one’s food doesn’t taste as good,
and prayer is hard when life is painful and God seems cruel. After a
loss- not just death, but loss- life can seem empty of meaning and
just no fun. Rashi’s midrash represents the emotional and spiritual
experience of grief in almost palpaple terms: darkness, bread which is
stale in one’s mouth, even the sense of disconnecting from one’s soul.

To me, this is why traditional Jewish practices in the period of
mourning both release one from parties and entertainment (because such
things are out of sync with one’s emotional reality) but forces the
mourner to both eat (when people bring food to the shivah) and pray in
community (one needs a minyan, a quorum of ten, to say the mourner’s
kaddish). It would be so easy not to do either, and yet both caring
for our health and the continued connection with others are part of
what bring us back into light (picking up on the image of Sarah’s
candle) after sojourning in the darkness of grief.

Thus, my take on Rashi’s commentary is not that Yitzhak loved Rivka
out of a need to find comfort after his mother’s death, but the
reverse: he was able to love Rivka because his journey of grief had
reached the stage where he was now open to light, joy, and gladness.
Perhaps Yitzhak himself was surprised at his renewed capacity for love
and pleasure, or perhaps he simply wasn’t able to take a wife into
“his mother’s tent” – that is, into his heart, which had been full of
grief, with no room for other emotions- until enough time had passed
such that he was once again able to feel at home in the world and
experience its blessings, the greatest of which is the renewed
capacity for love, in all its forms and expressions.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

PS- before we go to our customary links, here’s a very different
interpretation of Rashi on this verse:

http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/archives/5761/hayyeisarah.shtml

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Chayei Sarah

Good morning!

Well, here’s hoping everybody goes to the gym, or gets their favorite form of
exercise, on the day between the big American feast (Thanksgiving) and our weekly Shabbat
treats (even if you’re just beginning a Shabbat practice, go get some Shabbat treats
for yourself- you deserve it, every week!)

Our parsha this week is Chayyeh Sarah, the “life of Sarah,” which famously
begins with her death and burial in Hebron. Avraham sends his helper, Eliezer, to find a wife
for Yitzhak; he finds Rivka by noticing how kindly she treats him and his animals. Avraham
marries again, and there are genealogies of the various families. Avraham dies, and is
buried with Sarah in Hebron by his two sons, Yitzhak and Yismael.

Well, after a few weeks of heavy-duty emails from me, I think it’s time to be a
bit lighter in our choice of topics, so our subject for Torah study will be. . . . .camels.
Well, more precisely, how one dresses one’s camel when going out on the town- a topic which
I’m sure is very relevant to most of you reading this.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, camels are a key player in this week’s
parsha; when Avraham sends Eliezer off to find a wife for Yitzhak, Eliezer loads the camels
for the trip, and it’s when Rivka gives water to the camels that he knows she’s a person of
kindness and generosity. (In other words, how one treats animals is a clear sign of one’s
character.)

Rashi notices something interesting about these camels, so let’s look at the
verse:

” And the servant took ten camels of his master’s camels, and he went, and all
the best of his master was in his hand; and he arose, and he went to Aram naharaim, to the
city of Nahor. . . . ” (Bereshit/ Genesis 24:10)

Here is Rashi’s comment- see if you can figure out what his question is from his commentary:

Rashi:

“of his master’s camels. . .

` They were distinguishable from other camels by the fact that they would go out muzzled
to prevent robbery, that they should not graze in strangers’ fields.’ ”

Got it? Rashi’s problem is the extra detail: “his master’s camels.” Why does the Torah need
to say that the servant loaded up “his master’s camel?” Would those camels have
belonged to anybody else?

Now you understand why he provides an answer from earlier midrashic texts: the
Torah is hinting that Avraham’s camels were indeed different- or treated differently-
than other people’s animals. Avraham muzzled his camels so that they would not graze in
other people’s fields; not only is this good manners, but Rashi says that to do
otherwise would be “robbery,” which is just the action of taking anything that belongs to
someone else.

OK, so what do we do with this, especially if we don’t have camels parked in the
driveway? To me, the lesson is: even the busiest or most important person- is not exempt
from the obligations of community, which include always thinking about the needs and
boundaries of the people around you. You might recall that in the previous parshiot,
Avraham had some clashes with neighboring kings- perhaps he’s learned the lesson that living
in peace means being truly thoughtful in one’s “neighborliness.”

Do we let our camels graze on our neighbors fields? Well, no, but I’m guessing
there isn’t a person reading this who would not benefit from some reflection on how we
respect the time, feelings, honor, property, and well-being of the people we meet on a daily
basis. The rabbis saw in a simple act of animal husbandry a whole philosophy of living
in community- it’s not about the camels, per se- it’s about loving your neighbor as
yourself. In other words, the most practical action can (should!) reflect our deepest
spiritual ideals- and that, in a few words, is what Judaism is all about.

Shabbat Shalom,

rnjl

PS- As usual, you can find the Torah and haftarah in translation here, along
long with a
commentary by my dear friend and teacher R. Larry Troster- it’s a good read:

http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/index.shtml