Parshat Shoftim
SERMON Parashat Shoftim August 29, 2025
Rabbi David Edleson Temple Sinai, South Burlington Vermont
I have talked often about Lecha Dodi, and this week’s Haftarah reading from Isaiah 51-2 happens to include some of the key sources for the verses, I thought it might be good tonight to look at a few of the many sources for Lecha Dodi. You should have a sheet with these sources (or it is included below)
I want to start at the beginning. The words “Lecha Dodi” are from one of the most beautiful passages of Song of Songs
לְכָ֤ה דוֹדִי֙ נֵצֵ֣א הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה נָלִ֖ינָה בַּכְּפָרִֽים׃
Come, my beloved,
Let us go into the open;
Let us lodge among the henna shrubs.-e
Let us go early to the vineyards;
Let us see if the vine has flowered,
If its blossoms have opened,
If the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give my love to you.
The mandrakes yield their fragrance,
At our doors are all choice fruits;
Both freshly picked and long-stored
Have I kept, my beloved, for you.
(Song of Songs 7: 12-14)
Of course, the Song of Songs is a collection of love poetry from the court of the Israelite kings, but the rabbis interpreted it as a love song between God and the people Israel. This merging of the erotic and the religious is actually found in many religions, from Islamic Sufis to cloistered Catholic nuns, and of course, it pervades many forms of Hinduism.
In Judaism, it is subtle and even edgy, but there it is in our kabbalistic traditions and it is likely why the Song of Songs made it into the bible.
The practice of greeting the Sabbath as a bride or a queen goes back to the earliest collections of rabbinic texts, the Mishnah. In the tractate on Shabbat, we read:
רבי חנינא מיעטף וקאי אפניא דמעלי שבתא אמר בואו ונצא לקראת שבת המלכה רבי ינאי לביש מאניה מעלי שבת ואמר בואי כלה בואי כלה
R. Hanina would cover himself [in a cloak] and stand towards the beginning of Shabbat and say: Come, let us go out to greet the Sabbath queen. R. Yannai would wear a [special] garment on Sabbath eve and say Come, bride; come, bride. (SHABBAT 119A:2)
We are to long for Shabbat the way we long to see our beloved when we’ve been separated from them and we can’t wait to be together again.
The mystics of Tzfat, arriving from the Spanish Inquisition in the 1500’s reinterpreted it based on their cosmology of s’firot, or emanations of the Divine Source, the Ein Sof. To them, the part of the Divine that dwells on earth, the Shechina, was able to reunite with the part of the Divine that is outside the earthly sphere and the bliss of that reunion is what gives Shabbat its added holiness, it’s bliss.
However, coming from the catastrophe they had experienced in Spain, the absolute destruction of their way of life, they resonated deeply with the prophet Isaiah, and particularly with his promise of comfort that we read this time of year as the Haftarot leading up to Rosh Hashanah.
This week’s Haftarah includes some of these key verses. Let’s look at those on your sheet.
from ISAIAH 51-2 (Haftarah, Parashat Shoftim)
הִתְעוֹרְרִ֣י הִֽתְעוֹרְרִ֗י ק֚וּמִי יְר֣וּשָׁלַ֔͏ִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר שָׁתִ֛ית מִיַּ֥ד יְהֹוָ֖ה אֶת־כּ֣וֹס חֲמָת֑וֹ אֶת־קֻבַּ֜עַת כּ֧וֹס הַתַּרְעֵלָ֛ה שָׁתִ֖ית מָצִֽית׃
51:17 Rouse, rouse yourself!
Arise, O Jerusalem,
You who from GOD’s hand
Have drunk God’s wrath-filled cup,
You who have drained to the dregs
The bowl, the cup of reeling!
עוּרִ֥י עוּרִ֛י לִבְשִׁ֥י עֻזֵּ֖ךְ צִיּ֑וֹן לִבְשִׁ֣י ׀ בִּגְדֵ֣י תִפְאַרְתֵּ֗ךְ יְרוּשָׁלַ֙͏ִם֙ עִ֣יר הַקֹּ֔דֶשׁ כִּ֣י לֹ֥א יוֹסִ֛יף יָבֹא־בָ֥ךְ ע֖וֹד עָרֵ֥ל וְטָמֵֽא׃
52: 1 Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, holy city!
For the ruffian and the impure
Shall never enter you again.
הִתְנַעֲרִ֧י מֵעָפָ֛ר ק֥וּמִי שְּׁבִ֖י יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם (התפתחו) [הִֽתְפַּתְּחִי֙] מוֹסְרֵ֣י צַוָּארֵ֔ךְ שְׁבִיָּ֖ה בַּת־צִיּֽוֹן׃ {ס}
52: 2 Arise, shake off the dust,
Sit [on your throne], Jerusalem!
Loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive one, Fair Zion!
The saw their people as being in a kind of shock, or grief and mourning after the expulsion from Spain, just as Isaiah saw the shock of his people at the destruction of the first Temple. To quote Taylor Swift, they felt we needed to “shake it off, shake if off.” We need to get past the shock and disorientation, and get back to living and experiencing beauty and wonder.
As I’ve said many times, I am moved by the fact that these people could have had their lives destroyed, only to make to the “promised land” and find it a husk, in ruins and illness and poverty, and instead of despair and hopelessness, they chose hope. They chose to listen to the words of Isaiah that promised that bad times, tragic times don’t last forever.
These days, it sometimes feels to me like many of us are in a kind of shock. We are in shock at October 7, but more than that, at October 8 and at the levels of hate being aimed at us. We were already reeling from the Tree of Life shootings, and the Charlottesville march, and the rise of antisemitism on the left to match that on the right. It is hard to imagine it ending or getting better any time soon, and either our intuition or our generational trauma or both make it feel like it is going to get worse.
I think the rabbis of the Mishnah and the mystics of Tzfat have a profound teaching for us: make time to greet and welcome in the beauty in this world and this Jewish life. Don’t get stuck in what has been lost. The way to redemption is forward; the way to redemption is the way of faith and hope that in partnership with God, we can repair the world. It will get better.
The last section of today’s Haftarah is one of my personal favorite passages from Isaiah;
מַה־נָּאו֨וּ עַל־הֶהָרִ֜ים רַגְלֵ֣י מְבַשֵּׂ֗ר מַשְׁמִ֧יעַ שָׁל֛וֹם מְבַשֵּׂ֥ר ט֖וֹב מַשְׁמִ֣יעַ יְשׁוּעָ֑ה אֹמֵ֥ר לְצִיּ֖וֹן מָלַ֥ךְ אֱלֹהָֽיִךְ׃
52: 7 How welcome on the mountain
Are the footsteps of the herald
Announcing happiness,
Heralding good fortune,
Announcing salvation,
Telling Zion, “Your God reigns!”
ק֥וֹל צֹפַ֛יִךְ נָ֥שְׂאוּ ק֖וֹל יַחְדָּ֣ו יְרַנֵּ֑נוּ כִּ֣י עַ֤יִן בְּעַ֙יִן֙ יִרְא֔וּ בְּשׁ֥וּב יְהֹוָ֖ה צִיּֽוֹן׃
52: 8 Hark!
Your lookouts raise their voices,
As one they shout for joy;
For every eye shall behold
GOD ’s return to Zion.
Indeed, I was in a pretty dark time about 10 years ago as the result of a previous war in Gaza and the many friends that I lost during that. A friend suggested to me that I listen to this great new album. It was called “Beautiful and Broken” and it was by Dan Nichols. Sometimes, and album can get you through a rough time, and this album was that for me. I listened to it over and over and it helped me find my footing, find my sense of hope again.
On the album, his setting of the morning blessing for the gift of the body included this line: “I’m perfect the way I am and a little broken, too.” That line became sort of a mantra for me. There are many songs on that Album I love, and many we will be singing at the High Holy Days, but the one that I loved most was his setting of Mah Navu, those verses we just read. I remember just sobbing the first time I listened to it and still to this day, the hope in that song really helps me.
We are a resilient people, more than any people that has ever lived on this earth. What we have managed to create and build in just as few generations from the Holocaust shows just how miraculously resilient a people we are part of. That is our superpower, but some days, I have trouble finding that so tonight, I wanted to offer this song, Mah Navu, in the hope that it will help you find hope in these difficult times.
SONG (words on the handout)
SOME SOURCES OF LECHA DODI
לְכָ֤ה דוֹדִי֙ נֵצֵ֣א הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה נָלִ֖ינָה בַּכְּפָרִֽים׃
SONG OF SONGS 7:12
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
רבי חנינא מיעטף וקאי אפניא דמעלי שבתא אמר בואו ונצא לקראת שבת המלכה רבי ינאי לביש מאניה מעלי שבת ואמר בואי כלה בואי כלה
SHABBAT 119A:2
R. Hanina would cover himself [in a cloak] and stand towards the beginning of Shabbat and say: Come, let us go out to greet the Sabbath queen. R. Yannai would wear a [special] garment on Sabbath eve and say Come, bride; come, bride.
from ISAIAH 51-2 (Haftarah, Parashat Shoftim)
הִתְעוֹרְרִ֣י הִֽתְעוֹרְרִ֗י ק֚וּמִי יְר֣וּשָׁלַ֔͏ִם אֲשֶׁ֥ר שָׁתִ֛ית מִיַּ֥ד יְהֹוָ֖ה אֶת־כּ֣וֹס חֲמָת֑וֹ אֶת־קֻבַּ֜עַת כּ֧וֹס הַתַּרְעֵלָ֛ה שָׁתִ֖ית מָצִֽית׃
51:17 Rouse, rouse yourself!
Arise, O Jerusalem,
You who from GOD’s hand
Have drunk God’s wrath-filled cup,
You who have drained to the dregs
The bowl, the cup of reeling!
עוּרִ֥י עוּרִ֛י לִבְשִׁ֥י עֻזֵּ֖ךְ צִיּ֑וֹן לִבְשִׁ֣י ׀ בִּגְדֵ֣י תִפְאַרְתֵּ֗ךְ יְרוּשָׁלַ֙͏ִם֙ עִ֣יר הַקֹּ֔דֶשׁ כִּ֣י לֹ֥א יוֹסִ֛יף יָבֹא־בָ֥ךְ ע֖וֹד עָרֵ֥ל וְטָמֵֽא׃
52: 1 Awake, awake, O Zion!
Clothe yourself in splendor;
Put on your robes of majesty,
Jerusalem, holy city!
For the ruffian and the impure
Shall never enter you again.
הִתְנַעֲרִ֧י מֵעָפָ֛ר ק֥וּמִי שְּׁבִ֖י יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם (התפתחו) [הִֽתְפַּתְּחִי֙] מוֹסְרֵ֣י צַוָּארֵ֔ךְ שְׁבִיָּ֖ה בַּת־צִיּֽוֹן׃ {ס}
52: 2 Arise, shake off the dust,
Sit [on your throne], Jerusalem!
Loose the bonds from your neck,
O captive one, Fair Zion!
מַה־נָּאו֨וּ עַל־הֶהָרִ֜ים רַגְלֵ֣י מְבַשֵּׂ֗ר מַשְׁמִ֧יעַ שָׁל֛וֹם מְבַשֵּׂ֥ר ט֖וֹב מַשְׁמִ֣יעַ יְשׁוּעָ֑ה אֹמֵ֥ר לְצִיּ֖וֹן מָלַ֥ךְ אֱלֹהָֽיִךְ׃
52: 7 How welcome on the mountain
Are the footsteps of the herald
Announcing happiness,
Heralding good fortune,
Announcing victory,
Telling Zion, “Your God reigns!”
ק֥וֹל צֹפַ֛יִךְ נָ֥שְׂאוּ ק֖וֹל יַחְדָּ֣ו יְרַנֵּ֑נוּ כִּ֣י עַ֤יִן בְּעַ֙יִן֙ יִרְא֔וּ בְּשׁ֥וּב יְהֹוָ֖ה צִיּֽוֹן׃
52: 8 Hark!
Your lookouts raise their voices,
As one they shout for joy;
For every eye shall behold
GOD ’s return to Zion.
פִּצְח֤וּ רַנְּנוּ֙ יַחְדָּ֔ו חׇרְב֖וֹת יְרוּשָׁלָ֑͏ִם כִּֽי־נִחַ֤ם יְהֹוָה֙ עַמּ֔וֹ גָּאַ֖ל יְרוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם׃
52: 9 Raise a shout together,O ruins of Jerusalem!
Raise a shout together,
O ruins of Jerusalem!
For GOD will comfort this people,
Will redeem Jerusalem.
SONG : Mah Navu Dan Nichols
Mah navu al heh-harim raglei hamevasser
Mashmi’a shalom Mashmi’a y’shua
Kol Tsofa’ich nasu Kol yachdav y’raneinu
Ki ayin b’ayin yir’u b’shuv Adonai Tzion
Shabbat Shalom.
