“That They May Know That They Are Not Cast Off Forever”: Jewish Lectionary Elements in the Book of Mormon
Author: Bradley J. Kramer
Date: 2024-08-22T23:39:11+00:00
Keywords: Book of Mormon;Jews;Judaism;lectionary;antisemitism;Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints;LDS;Mormonism
Description: Abstract: It is not uncommon for Jews who join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to notice connections between certain events in the Book of Mormon and modern Jewish practices associated with the feasts of Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles, and Rosh Hashanah. Aware that traditional Christianity holds not only that Jews were ousted from God’s covenant but that Jewish traditions in support of that covenant are spiritually worthless, these Jews find great comfort in these connections as well as in Book of Mormon statements that affirm their continued inclusion in that covenant. But aren’
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“That They May Know That They Are Not Cast Off Forever”: Jewish Lectionary Elements in the Book of Mormon

Bradley J. Kramer

Abstract: It is not uncommon for Jews who join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to notice connections between certain events in the Book of Mormon and modern Jewish practices associated with the feasts of Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles, and Rosh Hashanah. Aware that traditional Christianity holds not only that Jews were ousted from God’s covenant but that Jewish traditions in support of that covenant are spiritually worthless, these Jews find great comfort in these connections as well as in Book of Mormon statements that affirm their continued inclusion in that covenant. But aren’t there also connections to the modern Jewish lectionary—the order in which Jews today read and explain their scriptures as part of their worship services? And don’t these connections similarly affirm Jewish efforts to uphold that covenant? This article explores these possibilities, first by describing three of the most basic principles behind that lectionary and second by showing how Book of Mormon prophets, Jacob in particular, adhere to these principles in their presentation of passages from the Hebrew Scriptures. In this way, this article shows how the Book of Mormon strengthens its already strong refutation of Christian supersessionism and encourages its readers to value Jews as Jews and to cease all anti-Semitic activities and attitudes.

For many Latter-day Saint Jews, several events in the Book of Mormon resonate remarkably well with current Jewish practices. Gale Boyd, for instance, a Jewish woman who joined the Church as a teenager and has studied the “connection between Judaism and Mormonism” for decades,1 sees a striking similarity between the way Alma counsels his sons (Alma 36–42) and the way adult Jews are encouraged to teach children during Passover. As she writes, the modern Seder text “describes four kinds of children: the wise child, the wicked child, the innocent child, and the child unable to inquire” and “instructs the leader on how to inform and encourage [these different children] to feel the meaning of the Passover.” According to Boyd, “Alma’s counsel to his sons parallels the structure presented in the Passover ritual.”2

Marlena Tanya Muchnick, another Latter-day Saint with a similar Jewish background, even suggests that Alma’s counseling sessions may have actually occurred during a Passover service.3 After all, not only does Alma tailor the tellings of his own miraculous deliverance from the “everlasting chains of death” (Alma 36:18) to the unique situation of each of his sons, but he begins the first session much like a Seder leader, by admonishing Helaman to “do as I have done, in remembering the captivity of our fathers; for they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it was the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Alma 36:2).

However, these perceived linkages to modern Jewish practices are not limited to Passover. They include connections to other festivals as well. Jason Olson, for instance, author of The Burning Book: a Jewish-Mormon Memoir,4 sees “pretty clear imagery with King Benjamin that [the Nephites] are practicing some form of Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles.”5 Other Latter-day Saint Jews similarly recognize resonances between Lehi’s initial experience in Jerusalem and Rosh Hashanah, between his later dwelling in a tent and Sukkot, and between Jesus’s appearance at the Nephite temple at Bountiful and Shavuot or the Festival of Weeks.6

Given that the Book of Mormon was explicitly written for modern Jews (among others) and that one of its main reasons for doing so is so that “they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever” (title page), it is therefore fitting that the Book of Mormon would prophetically pick events from Nephite history and present these events in such a way as to connect them with the way Jewish festivals are currently observed. After all, these festivals, like the Sabbath itself (Exodus 31:13–17),7 are considered signs of God’s “perpetual covenant” with Israel.8 Coupled with statements affirming the place of the Jews as God’s “ancient covenant people” (2 Nephi 29:4–5) as well as their continuing inclusion within that covenant (Mormon 3:21), such connections go far in reassuring Latter-day Saint Jews that God’s covenant with their people remains intact and that traditional Jewish efforts to preserve that covenant are valued by God—claims that traditional Christianity has historically disputed.9

But supplying linkages to modern observances of Jewish festivals is not the only way the Book of Mormon reinforces the ongoing nature of this Sabbath covenant. The way various people in the Book of Mormon approach the Hebrew Scriptures—in three parts, in a specific order, and in relation to certain significant events—similarly connects to the way these scriptures are approached on the Sabbath in synagogues today and, by inference, affirms that neither Jews nor their heritage have been replaced by Christians or superseded by Christianity.

To be clear, this is not to say that the Nephite lectionary of old somehow mirrored in any precise way the Jewish lectionary of today. Since the content and order of the modern Jewish lectionary formed centuries after Lehi left Jerusalem, such a close correspondence is highly unlikely. However, the Book of Mormon is not a history of the Nephites in the usual, comprehensive sense. Instead, as Richard Dilworth Rust writes, the Book of Mormon consists of “materials” from Nephite history that were “selected and designed by inspired persons ‘to come forth in due time,’ as Moroni puts it in the title page, for people living in a later age,” and it does so in order that these materials might “touch [their] hearts and souls as well as [their] minds.” 10 In this way, by connecting to the way Latter-day Saint Jews have experienced the Hebrew Scriptures in modern Jewish worship services, the writers, compilers, and translators of Book of Mormon—all of whom were prophets, operating under the inspiration of God—provide them with both intellectual and emotional evidence that they and their heritage are very much valued by God and that he condemns the anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviors that still pervade our society.

The Three-Part Approach to Scripture Reading in Judaism

According to longstanding practice, the standard Sabbath lectionary today consists of three basic elements: parashot, haftarot and derashot. The first of these, parashot (singular: parashah), consists of portions of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that are read aloud in the synagogue weekly. According to Jewish tradition, this custom of reading the Torah publicly was begun by Ezra after he and a group of Jews had returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon.11 Although Deuteronomy stipulated that “the sons of Levi” were to read the Torah before all Israel at the end of each seven-year period (31:9–13), it was not until his time that public Torah reading started to become the norm. At that time, all the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem after their exile in Babylon gathered themselves together “into the street that was before the water gate” and listened while Ezra read the entire Torah to them “from the morning until midday” (Nehemiah 8:3).

Nonetheless, Ezra did not simply read the Torah. He also “gave the sense” of it (v. 8). Consistent with this practice, another custom developed over the centuries where the weekly Torah readings were followed by explanatory sermons or derashot (singular, derashah). In place at least since Jesus’s time (Luke 4:17–27), derashot are delivered by darshanim or “interpreters,” people who, according to Michael Fishbane, appropriately enough, attempt to interpret the day’s reading “in the light of tradition, theology, or historical circumstance” and do so in terms understandable and applicable to the congregation.12

However, derashot are not the only element of the traditional Jewish lectionary that attempts to comment upon the weekly parashot. Between the readings of the Torah and the derashot, come readings mostly from the Prophets (Joshua, Judges, the Samuels, the Kings, as well as the literary prophets) or haftarot (singular, haftarah). These haftarot are not meant to compete with parashot or to contradict them. Far from it. In traditional Jewish worship services, the Torah is supreme. Many Ultraorthodox and Orthodox Jews consider its words to have come directly from God. Even Conservative and Reform Jews (whether they believe it or not) raise the Torah scroll high above their heads each Sabbath and proclaim that this text was set “before the Children of Israel; by the hand of Moses according to the command of God.”13 In contrast, the prophetic works are thought to come from God but indirectly, in a mediated form through the minds and hearts of human beings. Haftarot are therefore considered somewhat secondary to parashot since their authority, like that of the prophets themselves, depends upon the Torah and their purpose is primarily to reinforce its commandments. Similarly, derashot are considered less religiously reliable than parashot for much the same reasons.14

In this way, the sequence of the three elements of the Jewish lectionary mirrors what Rabbi Wylen calls “the descending order of sanctity” of the three basic divisions present in Jewish versions of the Hebrew Scriptures.15 There, the Torah comes first, followed by the Prophets. Finally, there are the Writings (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, and so forth), whose place in the Jewish canon derives primarily from their use in Jewish services.16

The Three-Part Approach to Scripture Reading
in the Book of Mormon

In the Book of Mormon, there is no clear or complete description of Nephite Sabbath services. Consequently, how portions of the Torah and the Prophets were read and explained in these services, if indeed they were, is far from certain. Nonetheless, when the Hebrew Scriptures are read or cited in the Book of Mormon, the traditional Jewish view of the relative priority of these lectionarial elements, and perhaps their authority as well, is preserved.

Nephi, for instance, when he “did teach [his] brethren” in 1 Nephi 19, follows the parashah/haftarah/derashah sequence used in synagogues today. Here, in this informal setting, Nephi begins by reading “many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses.” He then reads “that which was written by the prophet Isaiah” (1 Nephi 19:23). And finally, he explains what these readings “meaneth” (1 Nephi 22:1–31). In this way, Nephi’s approach not only involves each one of the principal parts of the Jewish lectionary, but it presents them in their traditional sequence.

Abinadi follows this same order. In a much more formal setting, he is asked by King Noah’s priests to explain the meaning of some verses in Isaiah 52 concerning a person “that publisheth salvation” (Mosiah 12:21–24). However, Abinadi does not respond directly by turning immediately to the prophetic chapter in question. Instead, he redirects the discussion to the Torah, first by asking his interrogators, “What teach ye this people?” They respond that they “teach the law of Moses.” He then asks them, “Doth salvation come by the law of Moses?” The priests answer affirmatively, as does Abinadi (Mosiah 12:27–33). Abinadi consequently recites two of the most prominent of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:35–36). Later, after Noah and his priests attempt to slay him, he recounts the rest of these commandments since, according to Abinadi, they were clearly “not written in [the priests’] hearts” (Mosiah 13:11–24).

In other words, only after Abinadi has read from the Torah and established a Mosaic foundation for salvation does he attempt to answer the priests’ question, in a sermon, after reciting Isaiah 53 to them. In this way, Abinadi, like Nephi, follows the traditional lectionary pattern. He first establishes the foundation for his discussion with a Torah text, then complements it with a related prophetic text, and finally comments on both with interpretive words of his own.

Ammon, too, when he begins to teach King Lamoni, follows this same pattern. As Mormon writes, Ammon starts off with the Torah, beginning “at the creation of the world.” He next lays “before [Lamoni] the records and the holy scriptures of the people, which had been spoken by the prophets.” Only then, after he has set the scriptural “stage,” as it were, does he expound “unto them the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world” (Alma 18:36, 39).

The Relationship between the Torah and Prophetic Readings in Judaism

Aaron (Alma 22:12–13) and Jacob (2 Nephi 6:4–5) similarly follow this same basic presentational pattern. However, the traditional Jewish lectionary does not simply require certain types of scripture to be read and interpreted in a certain sequence; it also promotes a very specific connection between these readings.

Although haftarot are not read sequentially, from the first prophetic book in the Bible to the last, as are parashot with respect to the books of Moses, they are not random either. Just as the weekly Torah readings are set, so are their prophetic counterparts, and all of these haftarot connect to their parashot in at least one meaningful and scripturally significant way. For instance, both Numbers 13:1–15:41 and its haftarah (Joshua 2:1–24) describe scouts reconnoitering Canaan in preparation for an Israelite invasion.17 However, the parashah tells the story of ten faithless scouts whose discouraging report kept the Children of Israel wandering outside their Promised Land for forty years while its haftarah relates how two faithful scouts produced a more encouraging report and consequently paved the way for the children of these children to, at last, enter into that land and possess it.

The situational similarities in these stories, therefore, serve to connect them and highlight their main point: that faithfulness to God, though challenging, brings blessings, while fear postpones those blessings. In this way, haftarot complement their parashot, not only by reinforcing a point, but also by rendering an academic point applicable, by translating an ancient situation into more current terms, and by increasing a passage’s significance.18

No one knows for certain when or why this custom of reading complementary selections from the Prophets began. Although they could reflect a much earlier practice, haftarot readings have been traditionally thought to have originated during the second century bce. This is when Antiochus Epiphanes IV, a Greek Seleucid king, imposed harsh restrictions on Jewish worship, including banning the reading of the Torah. Jews at that time, so the tradition goes, resorted to reading related material from the Prophets as a reminder of the Torah portion they would have ordinarily read on that day. Other scholars think that haftarot were later innovations affirming the place of the prophets in response to the Sadducees and to other groups who denied prophetic authority.19 Regardless of their origins, haftarot continue to enhance Jewish understanding of the Torah by closely connecting it to the Prophets and by adding to it what Rabbi J. H. Hertz calls “a Prophetic message of consolation and hope.”20

The Relationship between the Torah and Prophetic Readings in the Book of Mormon

Once again, because there are no clear or complete descriptions of Nephite worship services in the Book of Mormon, it is not certain how—or even if—portions of the Torah were liturgically linked to specific readings from the prophets. However, there are at least two reasons why Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25, the parashah traditionally connected to Isaiah 49, could have been one of the “many things . . . which were written in the books of Moses” (1 Nephi 19:23) that Nephi read to his brothers before he read that prophetic chapter to them.

For one, the presentational style of this parashah helps explain why Nephi’s brothers asked if the gathering spoken of in Isaiah 49 is “to be understood according to things which are spiritual” or was it something that would occur in “the flesh” (2 Nephi 22:1). Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25, the Torah portion called ‘Eikev or “if” as in “if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them” (Deuteronomy 7:12),21 develops the idea that such obedience will bring blessings to Israel by listing many of the blessings and by doing so in straightforward, tangible terms. As Chapter 7 continues:

He will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee. (Deuteronomy 7:13–16)

Chapter 8 similarly describes Israel’s Promised Land as
a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. (Deuteronomy 8:7–10)

In contrast with the simplicity of Eikev’s presentation, the presentation in Isaiah 49 is much more literarily complex. It includes figures of speech:

- Similes—such as claiming that the prophet’s mouth will be “like a sharp sword,” that the Lord will clothe Israel “as with an ornament,” and that Israel’s enemies “shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine.”

- Metaphors—such as calling the prophet “a polished shaft,” predicting that God has hidden him in his “quiver,” and prophesying that Gentiles will “bow down“ to Israel and carry their children back to their ancient homeland “in their arms” and “upon their shoulders.” Such phrases, though vivid and even beautiful, are impossible to interpret literally (1 Nephi 21:2, 18, 26).

Given this difference in presentation, it is understandable why Nephi’s brothers, if Eikev had indeed been read to them first, would question the physicality of any future gathering of Israel. However, Eikev’s style is not the only reason they would do this. Eikev is similarly straightforward about what Israel is required to do to receive these promised blessings as well as what the consequence would be if these requirements were not met.

In Deuteronomy 8, immediately after detailing the blessings the Lord promises to give Israel, Moses warns them not to forget ”the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day” (Deuteronomy 8:11). He then reminds them of several times when the Lord blessed them in the past and concludes,

If thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 8:19–20, emphasis added)

Lehi had openly testified of the wickedness of the Jews who were living in Jerusalem at that time and had read in vision how many of them would indeed “perish by the sword” (1 Nephi 1:13, 19), just as Eikev predicted. Consequently, it would be only natural for Nephi’s brothers to question the physicality of this gathering—especially considering how far they, as some of those dispersed Israelites, had traveled and how concerned they themselves had been about perishing along the way (1 Nephi 2:11; 5:2, 4; 16:35, 39; 17:5).

Another reason why Eikev might have been one of the “many things” that Nephi had read to his brothers is suggested by his purpose for reading Isaiah 49 to them. As Nephi declares in 1 Nephi 19, he chose this chapter explicitly so that he “might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer” (v. 23).

In the majority of the English-language translations of the Torah, the word redeem is used most often to refer to the process of buying back people or properties that have either been sold to someone or sanctified to the Lord (Exodus 34:20; Leviticus 25:25–26, 29–32, 48–49, 54; 27:13, 15, 19–20, 27–29, 31, 33; Numbers 3:46, 48–49, 51). However, except for one passage in Genesis (48:16), only in Eikev and in the parashot that surround it does this word appear in the Torah in the sense that Nephi uses it—as an action or as an actor that saves people from sin or evil.

In the parashah that comes immediately before Eikev, Va-Ethannan (see Table 2), Moses tells Israel, “Because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen” (Deuteronomy 7:8, emphasis added). In Eikev itself, Moses reinforces this concept of redemption by recounting for Israel the many ways the Lord has aided them during their journey. Those ways included feeding these Israelites with manna, preventing their clothes from wearing out, and producing water out of “rock of flint”—all so that they might know that it is he that rescued them and that “it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:2–4, 15, 18).

Underscoring Israel’s dependence upon the Lord’s power and mercy, Moses next tells them, still in Eikev, that it is “not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land.” He then recounts how Israel provoked the Lord in the wilderness, how they “corrupted themselves” with the golden calf, and how they rebelled against him at Kadesh-barnea (Deuteronomy 9:5, 23–24). Nevertheless, despite these events, Moses prayed for them, pleading with the Lord to “destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness” (v. 26, emphasis added).

In fact, the Lord’s redemption of Israel is one of the main themes of Eikev as well as that of the parashot that immediately follow it (see Table 2). In R’eih, the Lord is twice described as the being that “redeemed you out of the house of bondage.” In Shoftim, Moses again pleads with the Lord to “be merciful unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed.” And in Ki Tetzei, he enjoins Israel to “remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence” (Deuteronomy 13:5; 15:15; 21:8; 24:18, emphasis added).

Nevertheless, in these parashot, the Lord’s redemption of Israel is confined to the past, to their deliverance from Egypt, and to their rescue from the difficulties of the desert. Isaiah 49, however, extends this concept into the future, using the future tense. Here, in this chapter, the Lord is explicitly referred to as “the Redeemer of Israel,” and he is shown reassuring a much later (and sometimes sinful) Israel that they remain his servants, in whom “I will be glorified.” Similarly, the Lord promises this same Israel that “I will preserve thee” and affirms that, although others may do otherwise, “yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel” (1 Nephi 21:3, 7, 8, 15). As the Lord adds,

I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. (1 Nephi 21:22–23)

Again, the Lord states that he will do all these things for Israel in the future and that he will do them so that “all flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am thy Savior and thy Redeemer” (v. 26). In this way, by extending the Lord’s redemption of Israel into the future, Isaiah 49, as a haftarah of Deuteronomy 7:12 to 11:25, does indeed provide a “fuller,” more sweeping presentation of the Lord as Israel’s Redeemer, just as Nephi desired (1 Nephi 19:23).

The Connection between Prophetic Readings and Specific Events in Judaism

However, in the traditional Jewish lectionary, haftarot are not only linked to their parashot; some are connected to Jewish festivals and other significant events as well. This is particularly true of the haftarot that are read immediately before and after Tisha b’Av. On Tisha b’Av, the ninth day in the Jewish month of Av, observant Jews traditionally mourn the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. Later tradition holds that the destruction of the Second Temple also occurred on that day, as did other tragedies in Jewish history. As Rabbi George Robinson writes, “Tisha b’Av is quite simply the saddest day in the Jewish calendar.”22 As a result, many observant Jews fast on Tisha b’Av and sit “shiva” for their people. They gather in darkened sanctuaries, forego their usual hygienic routines, and sit shoeless on the floor in mourning. They chant Lamentations aloud according to a melody so sorrowful that it is used only on this day. In this way, according to Rabbi Irving Greenberg, “unshaven, unwashed, hungry people reexperience the tragedy of the Destruction.”23

For various reasons, Tisha b’Av is not a major holiday. For one, it is not one of the chagim, or pilgrim festivals, specified by the Torah. Secondly, it is not emphasized by Reform and other liberal Jews who consider their dispersion a good thing in that it put them in a better position to serve as an ethical “light unto the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6). Nevertheless, liturgically Tisha b’Av remains important for virtually all observant Jews. As Michael Fishbane writes, this day initiates “a period during which the haftarot relate thematically to the religious calendar.” Instead of reinforcing the themes of their parashot, the haftarot that surround Tisha b’Av stress instead repentance and forgiveness and therefore connect more “to themes of the [upcoming] holy days of the New Year.”24 In this way, the prophetic passages that are read aloud during the weeks that come immediately before and after Tisha b’Av cause their listeners to turn their grief inward, to examine themselves and their lives to see if there are not things they need to change in order to be prepared for Yom Kippur and the redemption that day represents.

According to Rabbi Wayne Dosick, observant Jews traditionally prepare for Tisha b’Av three weeks before, on the seventeenth day of Tammuz, a fast day that “marks the first breach of the walls of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E.” From that day forward, they display “the traditional signs of mourning”—refraining from participating in weddings and other celebrations as well as abstaining from shaving and cutting their hair.25 During this time, “The Three Haftarot of Admonition” are read in Sabbath services—prophetic readings that, according to Fishbane, “warn the people Israel about the consequences of sin.”26

Table 1. The Three Haftarot of Admonition

Parashot Title

Readings

Haftarot

Mattot

Numbers 30:2–32:42

Jeremiah 1:1–2:3

Mas’ei

Numbers 33:1–36:13

Jeremiah 2:4 –28, 3–4

D’varim

Deuteronomy 1:1–3:22

Isaiah 1:1–27

Jeremiah 1:1–2:3, for instance, the first of these haftarot, relates how “out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of [Jerusalem]” and tells how the Lord will “utter [his] judgments against them touching all their wickedness” (vv. 1:14, 16). Jeremiah 2:4–28, 3–4, the second haftarah similarly addresses Israel stating, “Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart.” (v. 4:18). And Isaiah 1:1–27, the last of these three haftarot, calls Jerusalem a “sinful nation” and tells its inhabitants that they are like a man whose “whole head is sick,” whose “whole heart faint,” whose country will become desolate, and whose cities will be burned with fire (vv. 4–7).

Read on Shabbat Chazon—meaning “vision,” taken from the first Hebrew word of this passage—this last haftarah, according to Greenberg, constitutes “a devastating critique of the sin and corruption of Israel.”27 It serves as the third and final reminder, according to W. Gunther Plaut, that punishment “will be meted out to a people that forgets the God of the Covenant.”28 Nevertheless, as harsh as this warning is, it is not without hope. Here, in this chapter’s last verse, the Lord affirms that despite its sins “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment” (v. 27). In this way, according to Rosenberg, this haftarah serves as a link to the Seven Haftarot of Consolation.29

The Seven Haftarot of Consolation come immediately after Tisha b’Av. In them, the comforting assurances hinted at in the previous haftarah become the dominant theme, and in so doing they not only offer solace to their hearers regarding the destruction of Jerusalem but help prepare them for Yom Kippur, the ultimate consolation, when sins, even the severe sins that led to the destruction of that temple, can be forgiven and mistakes made right.

Table 2. The Seven Haftarot of Consolation

Parashot Title

Readings

Haftarot

Va-Ethannan

Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11

Isaiah 40:1–26

Eikev

Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25

Isaiah 49:14–51:3

R’eih

Deuteronomy 11:26–16:17

Isaiah 54:11–55:5

Shoftim

Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9

Isaiah 51:12–52:12

Ki Tetzei

Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19

Isaiah 54:1–10

Ki Tavo

Deuteronomy 26:1–29:8

Isaiah 60:1–22

Nitzavim

Deuteronomy 29:9–31:30

Isaiah 61:10–63:9

The first haftarah, Isaiah 40:1–26, for instance, sets the tone for the six that follow by commanding God’s prophets to speak “comfortably” to Jerusalem and to “cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned” (Isaiah 40:2). Instead of dwelling on Israel’s past problems, these prophets are to look forward and prepare “the way of the Lord,” make “straight in the desert a highway for our God,” and generally smooth the path on which Israel can return to its promised place of honor (v. 3). To this end, they are to prophesy that eventually “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (vv. 4–5).

In other words, God’s prophets are to send forth “good tidings” to Zion and announce to its dispersed and afflicted inhabitants that God yet remains “your God,” that he “shall feed his flock like a shepherd,” and that he will gather them like “lambs with his arms” (vv. 9–11). In this way, according to Fishbane, Isaiah 40:1–26 as well as the six haftarot that follow it, “announce Israel’s redemption.” In it, “the prophet stresses the fulfillment of God’s word and His supremacy over all nations and kings. The prophecy reorients the people to Zion and announces the advent of God’s Presence—to confirm and guide the renewal of His people and their homeland.”30

At the end of this liturgical cycle comes Shabbat T’shuvah or the Sabbath of Repentance. This is the last Shabbat before Yom Kippur, and during worship services on that day, “it is probable that one will hear a sermon on the theme of repentance. Indeed,” as Robinson continues, “even before it became the custom for a rabbi to sermonize regularly, this Shabbat was marked by a sermon, often given by a leader of the Jewish community, exhorting Jews to repent.”31 Here, once again, according to Fishbane,
haftarah texts were chosen according to the theme of the day and not because of any verbal correspondence with the weekly Torah portion. . . . Hosea in particular, expresses confession of sins and commitment to God; Joel refers to rituals of contrition and purification, along with priestly prayers; and Micah celebrates divine forgiveness of sin.32

In this way, Shabbat T’shuvah completes the ten-week liturgical path from the sorrow and sin of Tisha b’Av to the hope and redemption of Yom Kippur.33

The Connection between Prophetic Readings and Specific Events in the Book of Mormon

Since the Lehites left Jerusalem several years before it was destroyed by the Babylonians,34 they clearly could not have observed Tisha b’Av. Nevertheless, Jacob’s reaction to Jerusalem’s destruction and to the resultant captivity and dispersion of its inhabitants, as recorded in 2 Nephi 6–9, is remarkably similar to the readings and sermons that traditionally follow that day.

Here, consistent with what Jewish leaders have done for centuries on the Sabbath and still do today, Jacob addresses all of his people, and he does so formally and officially, as their priest and teacher, in what very much appears to be a worship service (1 Nephi 6:1–2). Here, consistent with how the Torah comes first in all Jewish services, Jacob begins by reminding his people that he has previously taught them from it, even “all things which are written, from the creation of the world” (v. 3). Here, consistent with how a reading from the Prophets comes next, he then reads a section from Isaiah 49, part of the Second Haftarah of Consolation (vv. 5–7). Here, consistent with how an explanatory sermon then follows the haftarah reading, Jacob follows his reading with a derashah, where he speaks to his people “somewhat concerning these [Isaiah’s] words” (v. 8). And here, consistent with what darshanim traditionally attempt to do during the Sabbath worship services that succeed Tisha b’Av, he likens these readings to his listeners and tries to comfort them. He explains that, although the Lord has shown him that the inhabitants of Jerusalem “have been slain and carried away captive” in the past and will be similarly afflicted once more in the future, their descendants shall be “gathered together again to the lands of their inheritance” when the Messiah will set himself “the second time to recover them” (vv. 8, 11, 14).

However, as striking as these consistencies may be, there are more. After his first derashah, Jacob reads the rest of the Second Haftarah of Consolation (Isaiah 50 to 51:3) to his people as well as most of the Fourth (51:12 to 52:12). These readings testify that “the Lord is near” (2 Nephi 7:8–9), that he “shall comfort Zion,” and that “he will comfort all her waste places.” Jacob then continues, declaring that the Lord “will make her wilderness like Eden” (8:3), that “the redeemed of the Lord shall return,” and that in that land “they shall obtain gladness and joy” (v. 11). In this way, Jacob, again, just as Jewish religious leaders have for centuries, tries to console a displaced and afflicted Israel and reassures them that they still have a place in God’s heart and a home in Jerusalem.

Nonetheless, along with these words of consolation there is also encouragement to repent, as is appropriate for readings leading up to Yom Kippur, the day when the high priest anciently made “an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel” (Leviticus 16:17). This is also the day when Jews finalize their repentance process and at last receive forgiveness from God.35 Isaiah 52, for instance, begins, and 2 Nephi 8 ends, by speaking to Israel directly and by urging them, as a “captive daughter of Zion,” to “awake,” to “put on thy strength,” to “shake thyself from the dust,” and to “loose thyself from the bands of thy neck” (2 Nephi 8:24–25). Similarly, Jacob, in his second derashah, reassures his people that they, as part of scattered Israel, will also “be gathered home to the lands of their inheritance” (9:2). However, he also invites them to “turn away from [their] sins” by urging them to “shake off the chains of him that would bind [them] fast” and to “come unto that God who is the rock of [their] salvation” (v. 45).

In addition, Jacob augments his heartfelt plea by explaining to his people the concept of atonement—what it is and how it works. Much like a rabbi readying his congregation for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jacob urges them to prepare “for that glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous, even the day of judgment, that ye may not shrink with awful fear; that ye may not remember your awful guilt in perfectness, and be constrained to exclaim: Holy, holy are thy judgments, O Lord God Almighty” (v. 46).

In this way, Jacob completes the liturgical path that surrounds Tisha b’Av, a path that leads Israel from sin and destruction to a final redemption symbolized by Yom Kippur. In sharp contrast with the fasting that is observed on both of these somber days, Jacob concludes his derashah by quoting Isaiah 55:1–2, part of the Third Haftarah of Consolation, a passage that revels in the joy of that redemption:

Come, my brethren, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. (2 Nephi 9:50–51)

Conclusion

Once again, how exactly the Nephites worshipped anciently on the Sabbath is not entirely clear. However, the fact that their use of the Hebrew Scriptures, as presented in the Book of Mormon, connects so strikingly with the way Jews today use those scriptures in their Sabbath worship services is extremely meaningful, especially to Latter-day Saint Jews. Through sad experience, they are very much aware that traditional Christianity has historically held that the covenant between God and the Jews was broken and that all of their traditional practices in support of that covenant are superficial and worthless.36 These Jews, like almost all Jews, are also cognizant that this anti-Judaic view, augmented by accusations of being Christ-killers, has led to nearly two thousand years of Jewish subjugation, segregation, persecution, and victimization—and that these anti-Semitic activities continue today. Consequently, they are often conflicted about joining a Christian church, even one outside of that historical tradition such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As Lindsay Perlman states, “I am always Jewish. That doesn’t change. But [being baptized into the Church] can feel a little bit like you are cut off from your people.”37 Consequently, it was a great comfort to her that, as she studied the Book of Mormon, she noticed a number of actions and events in that book that resonated with her Jewish heritage—so much so that she now refers to the Book of Mormon as very much “a Jewish book.” As she explains, ”[The people in the Book of Mormon] have a way of thinking of things that is very, very at its core Jewish.”38

Indeed, Jason Olson, who suffered tremendous angst about joining the Church despite a dramatic spiritual experience, was greatly relieved to discover that the idea “that the Lord has not cast those [Jewish] covenants off” is a pervasive “theme throughout the entire Book of Mormon.”39 Consequently, the way it prophetically connects to modern Jewish practices that have been seen and heard and even touched by many Latter-day Saint Jews provides them—as well as others—a very personal, almost sensory reassurance that God, like Nephi, does in fact have “charity” for Jews as Jews, that he treasures their traditions, particularly their scriptural traditions, and that he condemns all efforts to denigrate Jews and devalue their heritage (2 Nephi 25:5; 33:8). As Nephi prophetically writes:

But thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles? O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people. (2 Nephi 29:4–5)

Bradley J. Kramer is the author of Beholding the Tree of Life: A Rabbinic Approach to the Book of Mormon and Gathered in One: How the Book of Mormon Counters Anti-Semitism in the New Testament. He holds an MA in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA in English from Brigham Young University with a minor in Near Eastern Studies. As a native of Cincinnati and as the son of an LDS mother and a non-LDS father, he has had a life-long interest in interfaith dialogue. For over twenty years, he has been a regular participant in Torah and Talmud classes at local synagogues in Durham, North Carolina, and has helped arrange joint Latter-day Saint-Jewish study sessions and other educational exchanges. He has also given several presentations to local and regional groups on the affinities between Latter-day Saints and Jews and is a regular speaker at comparative religion classes. Bradley has worked professionally as a writer and editor for several computer companies. He is an avid reader and researcher; a one-time youth soccer coach; a frequent Sunday School, Seminary, and Institute teacher; and devoted tennis player. He and his wife, Nancy, have three children and eight grandchildren.

1 . Gale T. Boyd, Days of Awe: Jewish Holy Days, Symbols, and Prophecies for Latter-day Saints (self-pub., Millennial Press, 2002 and 2007), back cover.

2 . Boyd, Days of Awe, 175.

3 . Marlena Tanya Muchnick, ed., A Mormon’s Guide to Judaism: Introduction to Jewish Religion and Culture for Latter-day Saints (self-pub., Granite Publishing, 2004), 33.

4 . Jason Olson and James Goldberg, The Burning Book: A Jewish-Mormon Memoir (Newburgh, IN: By Common Consent Press, 2022).

5 . Rebecca Devonas, “In the Burning Book: Jason Olson,” interview with Jason Olson, In the Book (podcast), 16 June 2023, 14:04, inthebook.podbean.com/e
/trying-to-burn-the-book/.

6 . Affirmed verbally in conversations by several Latter-day Saint Jews, these connections are described by Bradley J. Kramer in Gathered in One: How the Book of Mormon Counters Anti-Semitism in the New Testament (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2019), 73–82, 100–02.

7 . All of these festivals are called Sabbaths or involve Sabbaths, days where “ye shall do no servile work therein”: Passover (Leviticus 23:5–8); Shavuot (Leviticus 23:9–21); Rosh Hashanah or the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:23–25); Sukkot (Leviticus 23:34–39).

8 . Dovid Rosenfeld, “Tefillin on Chol HaMo’ed,” Ask the Rabbi (blog), Aish, aish.com/tefillin-on-chol-hamoed/. In this article Rabbi Rosenfeld cites Eruvin 96a as evidence that festivals are signs of God’s covenant with the Jews. The William Davidson Talmud, Sefaria.org, sefaria.org/Eruvin.96a.10?lang=bi. Menachot 36b states something similar. The William Davidson Talmud, Sefaria
.org, sefaria.org/Menachot.36b?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en.

9 . John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 213.

10 . Richard Dilworth Rust, Feasting on the Word: The Literary Testimony of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies [FARMS], 1997), 2–3, scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/34/.

11 . Elyse Goldstein, ed., The Women’s Haftarah Commentary: New Insights from Women Rabbis on the 54 Weekly Haftarah Portions, the 5 Megillot and Special Shabbatot (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004), xxi. Because the Book of Mormon was written explicitly to the “Jew” (title page) and not to Jewish scholars, I have chosen to cite sources commonly seen in synagogue libraries and in Jewish homes as opposed to less frequently known scholarly articles.

12 . Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002), xix.

13 . Hayim Halevy Donin, To Pray as a Jew: A Guide to the Prayer Book and the Synagogue Service (New York: BasicBooks, 1980), 55. A more literal translation would include the phrase “from the mouth of God.”

14 . Fishbane, Haftarot, xix.

15 . Stephen M. Wylen, Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 12.

16 . Esther is read on Purim, Song of Solomon on Passover, Ruth on Shavuot, Lamentations on Tisha b’Av, Jonah on Yom Kippur, and Ecclesiastes on Sukkot. The Psalms figure prominently in all services, as they did in ancient temple worship.

17 . The Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions differ occasionally on what haftarot are read with what parashot. However, in all of examples used in this paper, the two traditions agree. Furthermore, this paper (and the books it cites) follow the Annual Cycle of Torah readings. There is a Triennial Cycle that some Jews use. However, the Annual Cycle is more traditional and more widely used.

18 . A helpful discussion of the purposes of haftarot and their connection to the Book of Mormon can be found in Part 2 of Bradley J. Kramer, Beholding the Tree of Life: A Rabbinic Approach to the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014).

19 . Goldstein, Women’s Haftarah Commentary, xxi–xxii.

20 . J. H. Hertz ed., The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, 2nd ed. (London: Soncino Press, 1981), 20.

21 . Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 88.

22 . George Robinson, Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs, and Rituals (New York: Pocket Books, 2000), 131.

23 . Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 296.

24 . Michael Fishbane, “First Haftarah of Admonition: Haftarah for Mattot,” in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, ed. David L. Lieber (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 2001), 968.

25 . Wayne Dosick, Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 197.

26 . Fishbane, “First Haftarah of Admonition,” 968.

27 . Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 295.

28 . W. Gunther Plaut, The Haftarah Commentary, trans. Chaim Stern (New York: UAHC Press, 1996), 428.

29 . Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, The Haphtrara Cycle: A Handbook to the Haphtaroth of the Jewish Year (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 2000), 175.

30 . Michael Fishbane, “First Haftarah of Consolation: Haftarah for Va-Ethannan,” in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, ed. David L. Lieber (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 2001), 1032.

31 . Robinson, Essential Judaism, 96.

32 . Michael Fishbane, “Haftarah for Shabbat Shuvah,” in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, ed. David L. Lieber (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 2001), 1234.

33 . Fishbane, “First Haftarah of Consolation,” 1032.

34 . For a sampling of when scholars think Lehi left Jerusalem, see Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem,” BYU Studies 57, no. 2 (2018): 7–51, byustudies.byu.edu/article/dating-the-departure-of-lehi
-from-jerusalem, and David Rolph Seely, “Chronology, Book of Mormon,” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 196–204.

35 . Dosick, Living Judaism, 135.

36 . William Nicholls, Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995), 130, 172–73.

37 . Rebecca Devonas, “Another Jewish Book: Lindsey Perlman,” interview with Lindsey Perlman, In the Book (podcast), 2 June 2023, 16:17, inthebook.podbean.com/e/another-jewish-book/.

38 . Devonas, “Another Jewish Book,” 10:42.

39 . Devonas, “In the Burning Book,” 11:15. Joseph Spencer thinks that the main example of “plain and precious things” that the Book of Mormon says were removed from the Bible was the Abrahamic covenant. Therefore, one of the main purposes of the Book of Mormon is to restore these “things” and reaffirm that covenant with the Jews. Joseph Spencer, The Vision of All: Twenty–five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2016), 8.