Haftarat Parshat Noach: Barren and Storm-Swept

The haftarah for Parshat Noach is, in fact, made up of verses from two other haftarot that are also read on other days in the Jewish calendar. The two distinct prophecies from Yeshayahu (Isaiah 54:1–55:5) are each read later in the year as part of the seven haftarot of consolation following Tisha B’Av: Roni Akara, “Barren woman, rejoice” (54:1–10), and Aniya So’ara, “Oppressed and storm-swept” (54:11–55:5). Because each is read separately later in the year, Sephardic communities read only the first prophecy on the Shabbat of Parshat Noach.

Yet it is precisely in the combination of the two prophecies that a deeper message emerges – a message geared toward any Jewish community seeking to rebuild after its own type of “flood.” As the years after Noah and after Yeshayahu went on, the Jewish people would repeatedly have to confront the reality of destruction and exile. The questions Yeshayahu addresses are not merely ancient ones; they are questions that Jewish communities living outside the Land of Israel have had to confront throughout history.

Yeshayahu himself makes the connection to our parsha explicit. God declares: “For these are the waters of Noach to Me, and I swore that the waters of Noach would never sweep again over the earth. And so did I swear no more to be furious with you, no more to rebuke you” (v. 9). The covenant God made with humanity after the flood becomes the model for His promise to His people after their own catastrophe.

Then, the prophecy of Roni Akara, portrays the people of Israel as a barren woman, emphasizing the marital relationship between God and Knesset Yisrael. This metaphor speaks to a fundamental anxiety of Jewish life in the diaspora: the fear that the Jewish people will have no future. Will our children retain their faithfulness to our tradition and national mission, or will our distinctive identity gradually dissolve? A barren woman may survive and even prosper, but without children, she fears that there is no tomorrow. So, too, a Jewish community may flourish in the present, while remaining uncertain about its continuity.

To this anxiety, God responds as a husband reassuring his wife: “Broaden the site of your tent; stretch out your canvas home; do not hold back; lengthen your tent cords, and strengthen its pegs.… Do not fear – you will not be shamed” (vv. 2–4). The promise is one of continuity and restoration. Israel will not be abandoned to the fear that its future has been cut off.  “For one small moment I left you; with infinite care shall I gather you back” (v. 7).

The next prophecy, Aniya So’ara, addresses a different challenge of the diaspora. This is not a prophecy for times when life is going smoothly, nor does it focus on the quiet anxiety about the future that troubles the barren woman. Here, the woman is suffering in the present – “oppressed and storm-swept, never comforted” (v. 11). Her circumstances evoke the experience of Jewish communities in parts of the diaspora where persecution and antisemitism make daily life dangerous. The question is no longer whether there will be a Jewish future, but whether Jewish life can be sustained in the present.

Here, too, God answers with reassurance: “I am fitting your windows with rubies, your gates with glowing granite, marking your borders with stones men covet” (v. 12). Not only will you return to the Land, there will be restoration, security and abundance.

Rav Moshe Lichtenstein frames these two prophecies as distinct paradigms of diaspora life. Even when things are going well, Jewish communities must contend with the threat of barrenness – the challenge of sustaining the continuity of Knesset Yisrael in exile. And at other times, antisemitic violence threatens Jewish existence so strongly that the question is not only whether there will be a future, but whether there can be a viable present.

Each challenge demands its own kind of consolation: the barren woman needs to be assured of tomorrow; the storm-tossed woman needs to be assured that she will survive today.

Read together, then, the prophecies of this haftarah offer an extended reflection on the challenges that Jewish society faces in exile, and the promises God makes in response. Just as He established a covenant with Noach after the flood, He promises us that He will address both our barrenness and the storms that toss us. In one paradigm, God appears as our husband; in the other, He is our king. Both point toward the eternal bond between God and the Jewish people.

Yeshayahu captures that assurance in the closing verse of the first prophecy: “For mountains may move, hills may crumble away; but My love for you will not be moved, nor My pact of peace crumble. So speaks the Lord, who cares for you.” (v. 10).