The Haftorah, or reading from the Prophets, which follows the Torah reading, always has a connection to what was read in the Parshah. This week we read from the book of Kings of how Elisha the prophet is hosted on his peregrinations by a well off but childless women from Shunam in Northern Israel. He promises her a child which is indeed born, but later, as a youngster, collapses and dies and is subsequently revived by the Prophet. The connection to the Parshah, where we read of the barren Sarah giving birth to Isaac is obvious. The revival of the Shunamite’s son can also recall the Akeda and Isaac’s escape from being sacrificed. In both readings therefore, we have barren women miraculously giving birth and subsequently almost losing their children, if not for Divine intervention.

Yet there is yet another aspect which connects these stories and touches on a fundamental aspect of Jewish existence. In both cases, the person promised the miraculous birth seems to initially spurn the offer. When Abraham is told of the promised birth of Isaac he seems to reply that it would be enough if Ishmael continued to live and be well. The Shunamite woman, who earlier has rejected the prophet’s general offer of assistance, tells Elisha not to deceive her, a retort she later throws at him when her son dies. It seems that in neither case does the recipient of these miraculous interventions feel that is a good idea, and in at least one of the cases she clearly understands the consequent danger to her offspring as precisely the result of the miraculous nature of their birth. It appears that miracles are not necessarily the best form of assistance and it may be better to do without them.

On one level, this does indeed seem to be the case, yet an interesting divergence in custom tells another story. One of the most striking differences between the Haftorah readings of Ashkenazim and Sephardim concerns this week’s reading. The Ashkenazim continue to the end of the story, with the ultimate revival of the woman’s son. All’s well that ends well. The Sephardim however end in the middle of the story when the boy is lying dead and his mother is rushing off to see the prophet. When asked by her husband what is the matter she merely says Shalom – Peace – and here the reading ends. It is as if we are saying that it is alright to live with the uncertainty of not knowing the end and of needing a miracle for everything to turn out alright. It is precisely this unpredictability and the tenuous nature of relying on miracles that Abraham and the Shunamite woman initially seek to reject. It is better to live in the relative certainty of living without the miraculous, even if it means missing out on a different future.

By stopping in the middle of the Haftorah we say that this is not the Jewish way. Jews have to find Shalom even in the middle of the story even without knowing the ultimate end and precisely relying on miracles that may or may not appear. That has always been and still remains the nature of the Jewish story.