For many, the haftarah is the “forgotten stepchild” of Shabbat morning services, according to Rabbi Samantha Frank.

“Everyone is so excited about the Torah reading, and then we just kind of have to get through the haftarah reading before we get to the end of services … then lunch,” said Frank, the rabbi educator at Temple Micah.

She and the clergy team there decided if they were going to read the haftarah — a selection from the books of the Prophets — every Shabbat, they might as well make it interesting.

And so they did.

Frank, a rabbinical student in spring 2018, had been interning at Temple Micah. When her internship ended, she told the then-senior rabbi she’d love to stay involved: “Is there anything that you have been wanting to do? A project you want someone to take on?”

Rabbi Daniel G. Zemel suggested they examine the haftarah, the reading of which traditionally hinges on a word or phrase that appears in the Torah portion and the haftarah.

“But for this congregation, and I think for a lot of modern Jews, the link is not as obvious or as resonant as it may have been 1,300 years ago, or even longer, when it was first established,” Frank said. “Rabbi Zemel suggested that there could be new haftarah readings that could be used to uplift the worship experience.

“‘Our tradition is ever so relevant, so why not uplift the pieces that would be resonant for our community?’”

The D.C. shul’s Innovation Fund allowed Frank and a team of partners to take on the work for a couple of years. Frank read through each of the Torah portions, took note of the themes and read “a lot” of the books of the Prophets and the writings to see where there might be corresponding themes: “The reading through was the easiest part. It took a long time, but that was all in the first few months.”

“I also considered, what are some of the best stories or texts in our tradition that aren’t in the traditional Torah reading cycle, and which of those should be uplifted,” Frank explained. “Essentially, I came up with a list of suggestions — ‘I think we should put this text from Jeremiah with this text from Exodus,’ for example.”

She consulted Zemel to discuss her reasoning before putting the paired texts into practice, exploring whether each worked in the context of a Shabbat morning worship. The ones that didn’t work were moved to a section at the back intended for study only.

Frank and the team also wrote new blessings mostly in English, with one Hebrew blessing.

For each parsha’s new selection, they wrote a short summary about what’s happening in the parsha, why they chose that selection, and what readers should focus on. These explanations make the text more accessible to b’nai mitzvah students, according to Frank.

“We offered some guiding questions and some explanation of why we chose it,” she said. “I think oftentimes the haftarah is just there, so by providing some context in English, that’s one of the ways we modernize it, and two, some of the questions that our ancestors asked are maybe less resonant than they are to the modern reader.”

The final result, completed in 2024 and printed in summer 2025, is a 157-page document — the Haftarah Project — that hones in on what we need to address today, Frank explained. “What should the American synagogue be talking about and thinking about?” she said.

Frank added readings for American holidays in addition to the yearly Torah reading cycle.

The new reading for Juneteenth is based on a 2020 sermon from a Protestant church in Iowa that “talks about God as a liberator.”

“We decided that this could be read for the Shabbat of Juneteenth,” Frank said. “It’s a really beautiful reading that we thought spoke to the spirit of Juneteenth and is a way to recognize our American history within the worship context.”

Now one year old, the Haftarah Project has already had an impact on the Temple Micah community.

“Something I’ve noticed is there is more attention on the haftarah,” Frank said. “Another thing we’ve noticed is the importance of continuing to educate people about it … to help the community understand what it is and how it came to be. The impact is ongoing.”

Frank scheduled a June lunch and learn session to explain the Haftarah Project, but the event was postponed.

Temple Micah’s Shabbat morning Torah study group uses the document weekly. Other synagogues have examined and used it as a reference point for their own services.

“We’re happy to share it with anyone who’s interested,” Frank said. “I feel really grateful to be part of a tradition that can honor change and growth and evolution as well as our inheritance.”

zbell@midatlanticmedia.com