Me: How are you today?
Prodigal: Good, just enjoying the day!
Me: As we hang out together, I will share some of my readings.
This is from the book I have a Friend Who’s Jewish Do You? by Don Goldstein
Have you ever gone to synagogue and noticed that on Shabbat, the Haftorah readings conclude at Isaiah 52:12; the very verse which begins the “Surrering Servant” passage…and then the readings pick up immediately after the 53rd chapter of Isaiah?
Herbert Loewe, a Reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge University and co-author with Claude Montefiore of A Rabbinic Anthology has this to say on the subject:
“Quotations from the famous 53rd chapter of Isaiah are rare in Rabbinic literature. Because of the Christological (that is Messianic) interpretation given to the chapter by Christians, it is omitted from the series of prophetical lessons (Haftorah) for the Deuteronomy of Sabbaths…The omission is deliberate and striking.
Isaiah 53 3-5
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
