How to Chant the Haftarah, Megillot & High Holidays

The Haftarah (in Ashkenazi pronunciation, "Haftorah") is a selection from Nevi'im, the books of the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, that is publicly chanted in synagogue immediately after the Torah reading. The word comes from a Hebrew root meaning "to conclude" or "take leave," reflecting its role in rounding off the scriptural portion of the service. The Haftarah is usually a single passage chosen to thematically echo that day's Torah portion or the occasion — the Babylonian Talmud's guiding principle is that the Haftarah should "resemble" the Torah reading. It is framed by its own blessings: one before, and a cluster of blessings after. The custom of assigning a fixed Haftarah to each Torah portion did not exist in Talmudic times and developed later, though discussion of prophetic readings appears already in early (Tannaitic, roughly 2nd-century CE) sources such as the Mishnah.

Megillat Esther (the Scroll, or Book, of Esther) is one of the Five Megillot of the Hebrew Bible and the central liturgical text of Purim. It tells how Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai foiled the plot of Haman, chief advisor to King Ahasuerus of Persia, to annihilate the Jews of the Persian empire. For public reading on Purim the scroll is written by hand on kosher parchment (klaf), and the core mitzvah of the holiday is to hear it read (mikra megillah). It is chanted with cantillation (te'amim, or trope) using a melody distinctive to Esther.

The Book of Lamentations — known in Hebrew as Eicha (אֵיכָה, "How," its opening word) — is one of the Five Megillot (scrolls) in the Ketuvim (Writings) section of the Hebrew Bible. Traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, it is a set of five poems mourning the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple (traditionally dated 586 BCE). Four of its five chapters are built on the Hebrew alphabet: chapters 1, 2, and 4 are single alphabetical acrostics of 22 verses each, chapter 5 has 22 verses but is not an acrostic, and chapter 3 is a triple acrostic of 66 verses running through the alphabet three times.

Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs, also called Canticles) is one of the Five Megillot (Scrolls) in the Ketuvim, the Writings section of the Hebrew Bible. It is traditionally attributed to King Solomon (Shlomo). On its plain level it is a cycle of love poems between a man and a woman, but Jewish tradition reads it allegorically as the love between God and the people of Israel — God as the groom and king, Israel as the beloved bride. Rabbi Akiva famously defended its holiness, declaring in the Mishnah (Yadayim 3:5) that while all the Writings are holy, the Song of Songs is "the Holy of Holies" (Kodesh Kodashim). It is one of the three festival Megillot read on the Pilgrimage Festivals, paired with Passover (alongside Ruth on Shavuot and Ecclesiastes/Kohelet on Sukkot).

Megillat Rut (the Book of Ruth, also spelled Megillat Ruth) is one of the Five Megillot, the five short scrolls found in Ketuvim (the Writings), the third section of the Hebrew Bible. Set "in the days when the judges ruled," it tells the story of Naomi and her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth, who clings to Naomi and to the God of Israel after both their husbands die. Ruth gleans in the barley fields of Boaz, a kinsman who ultimately redeems and marries her. The book closes with a genealogy revealing that Ruth and Boaz were the great-grandparents of King David. Read liturgically on the festival of Shavuot, the scroll is celebrated for its themes of loyalty, conversion, and chesed (loving-kindness).

Ecclesiastes — in Hebrew Kohelet (קֹהֶלֶת) — is a book of wisdom literature in the Ketuvim ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and one of the Five Megillot (Five Scrolls), alongside Esther, Lamentations, Ruth, and Song of Songs. The book opens as "the words of Kohelet, son of David, king in Jerusalem," and rabbinic tradition ascribes it to King Solomon in his old age; most modern scholars date it later, to the late Persian or early Hellenistic period (roughly 450–180 BCE), citing Persian loanwords and Aramaisms in the text. Its famous refrain — "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (Hevel havelim, where hevel means vapor or futility) — meditates on the transience of worldly pursuits while still urging enjoyment of life's simple pleasures as gifts from God. It also contains the well-known "To every thing there is a season" passage in chapter 3.

The High Holiday Torah reading refers to the special Torah portions chanted from the scroll during the morning (and Yom Kippur afternoon) services of the Yamim Noraim — Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Drawn mostly from Genesis (the Abraham and Isaac narratives) and Leviticus (the Yom Kippur priestly service and the holiness and forbidden-relations laws), with maftir portions from Numbers and dedicated haftarot, these readings carry the central themes of the season: remembrance, judgment, and atonement. In the Ashkenazi tradition they are not chanted in the ordinary weekly Torah trope but in a distinct, solemn High Holy Days cantillation reserved for these days.