No one ever talks about Nach.

Well, sometimes the rav talks about it. But most rabbis do not. They don’t even talk about the second half of the parsha. They’re saving that for some rainy day if they ever run out of things to talk about on the first half of the parsha.

So most people have a pretty solid knowledge of what happens at the beginning of every parsha, and a fuzzy-at-best knowledge of the end. In fact, several years ago, I wrote an article about how I decided to learn all of Chumash on my own and stop blaming other people for my not knowing more Chumash.That’s when I discovered that not only does every parsha actually have a second half, but that learning the end of a parsha often gives you context for what’s happening at the beginning of the next parsha. For example, the pasuk says, “Vayishlach Yaakov malachim,” and Rashi says they were actual malachim, and we’re like, “How does Rashi know?” I don’t know; maybe because the last pasuk of the previous parsha talks about how Yaakov encountered malachim?

So I think the main thing I learned is that you have to see everything in the Torah as one long story. Though if you do, you get to the end of the Torah, and you’re like, “What happened then? What’s the rest of the story, between the end of the Torah and the beginning of the Berel Wein books?” And you know that there’s a Nach, conceptually, but yeshiva didn’t really teach you that.

I think they think they did. All of my childhood knowledge of Nach came from half listening in the 20 minutes before Limudei Chol as the rebbi flew through the stories. No one had a sefer open. The rebbi’s job was just to get as far as he could because he knew that once we hit fifth grade, Nach was over. Chumash and Mishnayos time became Gemara time, Mishnayos disappeared (What? There are Mishnas in your Gemara!) and Chumash got relegated to Nach time.

And we only learned Nach in the first place during the two months of the year that there were no yomim tovim to learn about.

I’ve definitely never seen anything past Melachim.

I think this is part of why no one seems to take the haftarah seriously.

“It’s Nach. Nach is for girls.”

But I mean there’s a haftarah every week, and we don’t know it. Everyone knows what parsha it is, but you can’t ask anyone, “What haftarah is it this week?” Whenever it’s not 100% clear, the shul has to announce it. No one knows it. Except the one person who speaks about it at simchas who thinks everyone knows it: “Now everyone knows, this week’s haftarah talks about Hoshea…” and everyone sits there and thinks, “You lost me at ‘this week’s haftarah.”

The only time that people really pay attention to the haftarah is when you have a Shabbos that’s named after the haftarah. Though we don’t really know what those are either. I know there’s a Shabbos Nachamu, but I cannot tell you offhand which sefer that haftarah is in.

Sephardim stop reading this article here.

People don’t really take it seriously. There are no aliyos, no Mi Shebeirachs, and no one is making haftarah projects in kindergarten. And we can skip any random one if it’s Rosh Chodesh, or if the next day is Rosh Chodesh, and there is also no consensus across Klal Yisrael of how much of each haftarah to read.

The community of Frankfurt am Main concludes the article here. Others continue.

I’m always one of the others. I’m part of whatever community reads the longest version of every haftarah.

Not that it’s long. No one ever comes home late from shul and his wife asks why, and he says, “There was a really long haftarah this week. The Sephardim went home hours ago.”

And people have to practice for months to lein a parsha, but when it comes to a haftarah, basically anyone can lein it. They don’t even have to know when they come to shul that morning that they’re going to lein the haftarah.

“Do you want to lein the haftarah?” the gabbai asks, with one eyebrow raised.

“I might butcher it.”

Yeah, no one cares.

People don’t take the haftarah seriously, but there has to be a reason we lein it. Right? I don’t know the reason, because I didn’t learn that in yeshiva either. But there has to be a reason.

The community of Sheboygan, Wisconsin finishes reading the article here.

Once in a while, I actually get why the haftarah is what it is. I’m like, “It’s a shirah, because there was a shirah in the parsha!” Or, “This one’s about other meraglim! I’m definitely hearing the word meraglim a lot.”

But a lot of weeks it’s not as easy. Half the haftarahs just start with “Ko amar Hashem,” Which makes sense, when you understand that the basic context of Neviim is that there are neviim talking about prophecies they received.

Anyway, that’s one reason I’ve started learning Nach. With an open sefer and everything.

I’m also learning it so I can better understand Rashi on Chumash; for example, where Rashi says, “This was like the arbeh in Yoel’s time!” and I’m like, “Who?” I don’t know the context.

And then the Gemara gives you even less context, mentioning a half of a pasuk out of the blue, and all we have to go by is the Torah Ohr, who says, “Oh, here you go. It’s in Yechezkel 22.”

Great. I have to learn 22 perakim to get the context.

I’ve started Nach numerous times over the years.Occasionally I get inspired, usually around V’zos Habracha and then I kind of fall off, usually in Sefer Yehoshua when I hit the 10 perakim of straight geography. But this time I’ve made it to Shoftim!

It seems I’m up to a shirah. Which has its own challenges.

Maybe my wife can help me.

Chabad Chasidim begin the article here.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].