The Three Weeks

week we approach what is known colloquially in Jewish tradition as “The Three Weeks” or ben ha-metzarim, literally, “between the narrow places.” On most Shabbatot, the Torah narrative that is read in synagogue (the parasha) is followed by a thematically compatible passage from the Prophets, the Haftorah. During the Three Weeks, the thematic connection between the week’s Torah reading and the Prophetic text is broken. Starting the first Shabbat of the Three Weeks, the Haftorah is known as the first of three sad narratives, termed by our Rabbis as the prophecies of admonition or destruction — pur’anut. Painfully, they speak of the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem herself. Following the fast of the 17th of Tammuz (this Sunday), these three Haftorahs form the […]