what haftarah did you read this week?

Rama paskens in the end of siman 428:

כשקורין שתי פרשיות מפטירין באחרונה (מרדכי פרק בני העיר) ובלבד באחרי מות וקדושים דמפטירין הלא כבני כושיים שהיא הפטרת א"מ

Mishne Berura comments:

פני שההפטרה של פרשה שניה מזכרת מתועבת ירושלים משא"כ כשהן נפרדות שכבר קראו הלוא כבני כושיים בפרשת אחרי בהכרח להפטיר בפרשת קדושים התשפוט. והנה הלבוש חולק על רמ"א ודעתו דגם כשהיא כפולה קוראין הפטרה אחרונה דהיינו של פרשת קדושים אבל הב"ח וש"א כתבו שנתפשט המנהג בכל הקהלות כהרמ"א

I happened to daven in a different minyan than my usual one on shabbos morning and was surprised when the person reading the haftarah read the perek from Yechezkel and not the haftarah of כבני כושיים.  Not only does the Rama say otherwise, but even the posek acharon of shuls in our time, i.e. the Artscroll, says that minhag Ashkenaz is like the Rama.  No one else said anything, and I figured I was not a regular there, so what do I know (the Rabbi of this shul davens at the later minyan, so he was not present). As the baal koreh was finishing, finally someone knowledgeable did walk up to the bimah and asked the gabai what's going on.  Someone else then yelled out that the reader was correct, as that is what the luach says.  Curious, I went over and asked to see the luach.  It's published by Heichal Shlomo and it's available online, so you can see for yourself here on p 64  that this person is indeed correct.  

So do the Rama and Mishne Berura and even the Artscroll have it all wrong?

Here is my conjecture.  R' Y.M. Tukachinsky, author of Gesher haChaim and other works, also wrote a luach of minhagei Eretz Yisrael.  This issue came up, and he was mechadesh that the minhag in Eretz Yisrael is not like the Rama.  This elicited a backlash from the Chazon Ish and others, who disagreed.  The occurrence of Acharei Mos and Kedoshim as separate parshiyos where the potential for this question to arise is fairly infrequent, so it's not you can just ask someone what was done last year.  As luck would have it, you can read about the controversy in this month's edition of HaMaayan, and so you don't need me to spell out the details of the back and forth.  In terms of our story, my hunch is that the luach printed by Heichal Shlomo is built around Rav Tukachinsky's luach of minhagei Eretz Yisrael, and therefore, assumes not like the Rama. (I wish I could find contact info to confirm this.) That's fine and dandy if you live in Eretz Yisrael and think R' Tukachinsky got it right, but it seems to me to be a very questionable stretch to assume this is the minhag Ashkenaz in the US and elsewhere.  

Afterwards, the person who read the haftarah came over to the person who tried to correct him and admitted that in retrospect he thinks he made a mistake, as he found a parsha sheet that said the haftarah should be כבני כושיים. (I learned from this that a random parsha sheet trumps even the heilege Artscroll.)  Assuming like the lishna basra that this was an error, I wonder what this minyan should do next week.  Should they read the haftarah of התשפוט like everyone else reads for Kedoshim?  Or since they already read that haftarah of התשפוט for Achrei Mos, albeit in error, should they read  כבני כושיים for Kedoshim? I hope someone there asks their Rav what to do before next shabbos rolls around.  I also hope I get myself out of bed up on time to get to my normal place of worship so I avoid situations like this : ) 

It's worth mentioning that there is yet a third minhag, minhag Yerushalayim, to read the same haftarah of כבני כושיים for both Acharei Mos and Kedoshim (see here).  The essential background to all this is the last line of the last Mishna in Megillah, which says  רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר, אֵין מַפְטִירִין בְּהוֹדַע אֶת יְרוּשָׁלַיִם.  Bartenua comments: משום יקרא דירושלים.  We don't want to read a haftarah that speaks badly of Yerushalayim.  He adds that we don't pasken like R' Eliezer.  Tos Y"T asks: the stam Mishna earlier writes that we do read the maaseh ha'eigel even though the sin is an embarrassment because there is a silver lining to that embarrassment -- suffering the embarrassment enables us to get kaparah.  Why does R' Eliezer agree with the sevara there, but not with respect to reading about the sins of Yerushalayim?  Why not read about the wrongdoing of Yerushalayim to suffer embarrassment and get kaparah?  Furthermore, adds the Tos Y"T, if R' Eliezer is correct, he should have a problem with the haftarah of Kedoshim as well:   וכן הפטרה דקדושים התשפוט התשפוט את עיר הדמים (יחזקאל כ"ב) וכו' He goes on to try to answer this question, but is his answer, which you can look up, really satisfying?  This story speaks for itself:

קרה מקרה בבית הכנסת אשר בבתי ברודא כאשר התחיל הקורא לקרוא בפרשת קדושים את הפטרת הלא כבני כושיים, קרא לעומתו רב גדול אחד מהעולים החדשים אז, – קוראים התשפוט! ירד בעל הקריאה מעל הבימה ואמר: אני אינני מוכן לעמוד בהקפדתו של ר' אליעזר, אם כת"ר רוצה דוקא בהפטרת התשפוט, יעלה כת"ר ויקרא! ולבסוף הכריעו המתפללים והקורא קרא את הפטרת הלא כבני כושיים".

Besmirching  יקרא דירושלים is not something to take lightly.

Final point: a takeaway from the above story to keep in mind not just for this week, but for every week, is that the words of the navi are to be taken seriously and taken to heart.  The haftarah is not just a time to shmooz with a neighbor or go out of shul for a stroll or for some liquid fortification while the person called for maftir struggles to read words that are incomprehensible to him and most of the listeners.  The haftarah is the navi speaking to us from the page, across history.  When you read about to'eivos, you should look at what goes on around you and your eyes should fill with tears.  And when you read about the redemption of Yerushalayim, you should also look around you and fill your heart with joy.