For some 2,000 years, the practice at every Jewish congregation on Shabbos morning has been to read a weekly portion from the Torah followed by a reading from the books of the prophets, the haftarah.

Despite the haftarah’s antiquity and universality, we know little about its origin or purpose. No record appears to have survived informing us of the names, dates, and locations of the people who established the haftarah. We also have no record of the reasons for pairing particular verses from the books of the prophets with a particular parsha, other than what can be learned from the prophetic verses themselves.

This groundbreaking work attempts to identify the relationship between each haftarah and its parsha — and explores how this connection remains pertinent today.