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Mrs. Michal Horowitz is a Torah teacher whose shiurim reach audiences worldwide. She teaches weekly in her Five Towns, NY, community and lectures nationally and internationally. A longtime presenter for the OU Women’s Initiative, she inaugurated the Torat Imecha Nach Yomi program. In September 2023, she was invited by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to serve as the first female scholar to keynote the Annual Pre-Yamim Noraim Conference for the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. She is the author of Abled: Living With a Disability, a Torah View (Mosaica Press, 2025) and lives in Woodmere, NY, with her family.
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Dvar Haftorah
OU Women's Initiative
Founding Director
Rebbetzin Dr.
Adina Shmidman
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For America: Haftorah Korach
A Lesson in Jewish History
Shmuel 11:14-12:22
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The haftorah of Parshat Korach opens at a moment of profound transition. The Jewish people have asked for a king, and Shmuel responds with sharp rebuke and deep disappointment. Yet before addressing the request itself, Shmuel does something unexpected: he recounts Jewish history. He reviews the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim, the period of the Shoftim and the repeated cycles of failure, tefillah and salvation that shaped the nation. Why does Shmuel begin here?
The Malbim explains that Shmuel is reminding the people of a fundamental truth: the survival of Klal Yisrael never depended on political systems or military power. Again and again, Hashem saved the nation without a king. When the people cried out to Hashem, He sent leaders to deliver them. וַיִּשְׁלַח ה׳ אֶת יְרֻבַּעַל וְאֶת בְּדָן וְאֶת יִפְתָּח וְאֶת שְׁמוּאֵל, Hashem sent Yerubaal, Bedan, Yiftach and Shmuel (Shmuel I 12:11). The emphasis is striking. The Shoftim themselves were not the source of the nation’s salvation, but messengers through whom Hashem guided and protected His people. At this pivotal moment, Shmuel fears that the people are beginning to confuse the messenger with the true Source of their security. The request for a king was not inherently wrong. The Torah itself speaks of monarchy. But the people begin to believe that security will come through political structure and human strength rather than through their relationship with Hashem. Shmuel therefore retells Jewish history to remind them that the foundation of Jewish survival has always been something deeper
In many ways, Shmuel is following a familiar Tanach pattern. Before moments of transition or covenantal renewal, Jewish leaders often recount history. Moshe repeatedly retells the national story in Sefer Devarim before the people enter Eretz Yisrael. Yehoshua gathers the nation in Shechem and reviews Jewish history before renewing the covenant. And now Shmuel does the same as the nation enters the era of monarchy. Because before a nation can move forward, it must remember who it is. Jewish history is not presented in Tanach as nostalgia or background information. It is orientation. It reminds the people where their strength truly comes from and what ultimately sustains them.
That is why the storm at the end of the haftarah is so significant. Thunder and rain descend during the dry harvest season, disrupting the natural order itself. Even as the nation moves toward kingship and political organization, Shmuel reminds them that nature, history and national destiny remain in Hashem’s hands. Perhaps that is the enduring message of the haftarah. At moments of uncertainty, we naturally search for systems, structures and leaders that promise stability. Yet Shmuel reminds the people that no political framework alone can guarantee the future of Klal Yisrael. Before building the future, the nation must remember the story that carried it here all along.
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For Israel: Haftorah Chukas
The Story We Must Tell
Shoftim 11:1-33
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The haftorah of Chukas presents one of the longest speeches in Sefer Shoftim. Before Yiftach wages war against Bnei Amon, he recounts the history of the Jewish people in remarkable detail. He reviews the travels through the desert, the requests made peacefully to Edom and Moav, the confrontation with Sichon and the eventual settlement of the land. At first glance, the speech feels almost excessive. Why revisit events that took place three hundred years earlier?
The Abarbanel explains that Yiftach was doing far more than reviewing historical facts. He was establishing the moral legitimacy of Klal Yisrael’s presence in the land. Yiftach wanted to make clear that the Jewish people were not a nation of violence or conquest. Bnei Yisrael had requested passage peacefully. They avoided unnecessary conflict. The land under dispute had already been conquered from Ammon by Sichon before Israel ever fought for it. For the Abarbanel, this speech is fundamentally about moral clarity.
Yiftach understands that a nation must know how to tell its story truthfully and confidently. If a people loses clarity about its own history, others will define that history in its place. The Malbim develops this further. He notes that although Yiftach was introduced as a “גבור חיל,” a mighty warrior, he does not begin with battle. He begins with words, trying to provide explanation and explicit memory. Only after attempting diplomacy and historical clarification does war become unavoidable.
There is something profoundly significant about this sequence. Yiftach recognizes that strength alone cannot sustain a nation. A people also needs memory to understand where it came from, what it stands for and the principles that shaped its journey. Perhaps that is why the speech reaches back centuries. Jewish history in Tanach is never treated as distant or irrelevant. The past remains alive because it defines identity in the present. Memory is not nostalgia, it is responsibility. A nation that remembers its story preserves not only its past, but its moral compass for the future.
In many ways, this feels deeply contemporary. We are living in a moment when history itself is contested, simplified and rewritten with startling speed. The haftorah reminds us that memory is not passive. It requires transmission, clarity and responsibility. Yiftach teaches that telling our story is not merely an act of self-defense. It is an affirmation of who we are, where we came from and the values that continue to guide us forward.
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