Yiftah's vow

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  1. The Right Man at the Wrong Time

    Haftarot: Hukat

    Rabbi Mosheh Lichtenstein

    Yiftah of Gilad is described between the era of saviors and the era of leadership. Yiftah could become a savior, having won the war for Israel, but he desired to be a leader - which is beyond his reach. He demonstrates this desire by taking a frivolous oath. Instead of finding a way to nullify the oath and spare his daughter, he stubbornly decides to see it through. This lack of willingness to compromise is inappropriate for a leader in times of peace.

  2. Yiftach's Vow

    Rabbi Michael Hattin

    A close read of the text and a textual link to Akeidat Yitzhak points to the conclusion that the intention of Yiftah's vow was in fact human sacrifice. In the larger context, what this episode corroborates is that Israel and its leaders, in this horrible culmination of the process throughout the era of the Judges have become indistinguishable from the Canaanite. Yiftah, a self-styled leader of Israel and a seeming servant of all that is just and holy, is at the same time a product of the terrible effects of corrosive Canaanite culture that seeks to guarantee victory upon the battlefield by vowing to immolate an innocent human being.

  3. Did Yiftach Believe in Human Sacrifice?

    Rabbi David Silverberg

  4. Shoftim 11-12

    Matan Al Haperek

    Matan Al HaPerek - Neta Shapira

    In these Perakim we meet Yiftach, a figure whose leadership begins with high hopes but ends with both personal and communal tragedy. 

  5. Yiftah and Shemuel: The Power of Speech

    Dr. Yael Ziegler | Hour and 3 minutes

    The Tanakh often presents us with similar characters who at their core have similar kinds of personalities, but their spiritual lives wind up taking very different directions. The Tanakh, in presenting these kinds of characters, and Chazal, in picking up on these “mirror characters” are offering a distinction between a person’s fate and their destiny. The deciding factor is not the fate that they are born with, but the destiny that they choose. This lecture explores the similarities and differences between the figures of Yiftach and Shmuel.