[Avodah] Right to haftara

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 10:55:01AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
>                                              R' H Schachter reported
> that R'YBS held that a yahrtzeit has a "right" to say the haftara.
> 
> Fascinating interplay of priorities -- if saying from a claf is
> lchatchila, then what is "the right" being discussed that overpowers it?

None of the below matters, since we are talking about a citation of
RYBS and thus how /he/ would prioritize reading from a kelaf. And to
a Brisker, it's pretty etched in stone. (Pardon my wordplay.)

But historically speaking, there isn't much reason to require a kelaf,
and calling it a "lechatchilah" is overstatement. I certainly wouldn't
invest a shul's money in it when there are other expenses. Unless the
donor has his heart set on this cause and therefor that's what
motivates the gift.

Reading from a full sefer on Kelaf is comparatively new. Originally
we read from just a collection of haftaros, a Sifra deAftera, with
a machloqes emerging as printing became more common about whether it
needed to be a scroll on gevil (although we make kelaf that is held to
be kosher as either and as duchsista). The Levush, for example, insisted
on writing it in a scroll, with diyo, Ashuris, etc..

The origin is Gittin 60b, which says that reading from a SdA was allowed
because it was unrealistic to expect everyone to get a scroll for every
navi we read from.

And Sifrei deAftera (? guessing at the plural) often had niqud and
trop written in. But now I am in territory RJFS already covered.

The AhS explains how the existing norm evolved in OC 284:2-6, including
a Rashba that pointedly doesn't discuss needing a scroll for haftaros,
and the SAhR (se'if 4, cited in the AhS's se'if 6) explaining the gemara
in Gittin as saying that from day 1, they never expected us to lein
haftaros from a kelaf.

So who changed that? Earliest source is the Gra.

If you can find R Binyamin Hamburger's Shorshei Minhag Ashkenaz (vol 3
"Sifra deAftarta", it can explain all of the above in more detail.

--

Back a step, what's the status of haftarah to begin with?

We know haftarah as a whole preexists the mishnah, as it was read before
R Eliezer ben Hyrkeus (Megillah 25a) who lived through the chorban (and
was R Aqiva's rebbe). One theory is that it was a response to Antiochus
prohibiting Qeri'as haTorah.

Lehavdil the Christian Bible (Acts 13) alleges that Paul was asked to
give a sermon after the haftarah, and that would be before Churban
Bayis. Although I have no idea when Acts was actually written, could
be an anchronism.

RSRH says it was instituted as a bulwark against those sects that denied
that Nakh was canon. (Related tangent: The Ethiopian Orit is an Octateuch:
Chumash, Yehoshua, Shofetim, Rus. The do use Tehillim which they call
"Dawit". Much of their liturgy, like ours, is from there.)

We do not know if it was universal yet. Parshiyos weren't. Haftarah
may be minhag, albeit a minhag as old as Chazal and universally accepted
isn't all that less than a derabbanan.

Which really deranks it compared to someone wanting to honor a parent.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter