Haftorah Beha’aloscha
Zecharya 2:14

This week’s Haftorah records the prophesies of Zechariya to Yehoshua the Kohain Gadol.

In 3390 – 371 b.c.e, Zerubavel along with Yehoshua led 40,00 Jews back to Israel. They began building the 2nd Bais Hamikdash only to be stopped when Cyrus withdrew his permission. In this prophesy, Zechariya showed Yehoshua that he could be worthy of effecting forgiveness for the Bnai Yisroel, in spite of his own short-comings. He was shown a vision of the Menorah (the obvious connection to our Parsha) representing the eventual purity of the Jews, and their acceptance by the other nations.

The less obvious connection to our Parsha may be the concept of Teshuva and its relationship to the fulfillment of our mission. Just as the generation of the Exodus struggled with who they were in contrast with who they should have been, so too, in the building of the second Bais Hamikdash and the second Jewish commonwealth, Zerubavel and Yehoshua struggled with the realities of who they were in contrast to their undertaking of resurrecting the soul of their People.