Spiritual and Ethical Issues in the Historical Books of Tanach; JOSHUA, JUDGES, SAMUEL, KINGS (Nevi’im Rishonim)
by Dr. Meir Tamari

These four books ostensibly are merely the history of Israel from the entry into the Promised Land until the destruction of the Temple and the temporary loss of independent statehood. In fact they are actually, in a specifically Jewish sense, the most deeply religious and spiritual books of the Bible. One does not have to be specifically Jewish to see or feel the religion and spirituality in the revelations of the prophetic writings or in the words of the Tehillim. They speak to all people, as evidenced by the fact that the Bible is still the world's bestseller and there are millions of non-Jews who regularly recite the Psalms. However, it is specifically and intrinsically Jewish to understand that G-d is revealed in the prosaic material, in the political, social and military events in the lives of ordinary men and women, kings and leaders that are described in the Nevim Rishonim. Here are described the ideology and religious thoughts in Judaism, while in Chronicles we have the purely historical.

On Being a Jewish Prophet part 4 A Prophet’s Prayer
“What do I have to do with you? Have you come to me to call attention to my sin and recall it, and to kill my son’”? (Melachim Alef 17:18). This question of the widow of Tezarfat to Eliyahu, after her son died, is a strange one. The opening words are words of protest, common in Hebrew for addressing one who illegally and provocatively enters our private domain. In what way could the widow’s hospitality and Eliyahu’s subsequent miracle of the flour and the oil, be seen as drawing attention to her sin, and to which sin? She was saying that before this man of G-d came, she would have been regarded as being a pious and charitable person, but now in comparison with the prophet, she was revealed in another light. Her words are an echo of Lot’s, “When I dwelt with Avraham, my charity paled in comparison to his. Now, in comparison to the people of Sodom, they shine in glory. (B’reishit Rabba 3).

Out of fear and awe, she clutched the body to her breast, so that Eliyahu had to forcibly take the dead boy from her. He went up to the loft [a single room up a staircase, just below the flat roofs common in their homes] that she had provided for him, and stretched out upon the boy’s body. Our Sages queried this contact of a kohein with a dead body, normally forbidden. They explained that it is not clear from the text that he was a kohein; alternatively that the boy was not really dead but rather in a serious and deep coma; alternatively that since he was about to be resurrected, the boy was not considered dead (Comments to Bava Metzia 112b).
The prayer that Eliyahu now prayed for Divine Mercy should be seen as being an implementation of the role of all His prophets and righteous people, as we see from Avraham; “For he is a prophet and he will pray for you [Avimelech, the Philistine] (B'reishit 20:7).

These are prayers radically different from those we know from our siddur. The latter are all set both in format and in time; individual ecstasy and feeling being secondary. Furthermore, they are national and communal prayers; individual requests and petitions in the sense commonly understood in all faiths as prayers are secondary, only allowed to be inserted at appropriate places in the communal service. In contrast to the siddur, these prayers that we are describing are spontaneous outpourings of the heart, calls for help, for healing, and for salvation to knit unraveled souls and to bind broken hearts. Moshe prayed for Miriam to be cured from Tzaraat, “I beseech Thee, please My Lord heal her”. Samuel after the election of Saul as king, “ G-d forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you” (Shmuel Alef 12:23). The Psalms of David, Warrior-King and father of the Messiah, have been used by generations to beseech Him for help and to provide hope and solace in the face of suffering and sorrow. “From the depth do I invoke You, Our Lord: hearken unto my voice, may Your ears attend to the sound of my supplications” (T'hilim 130). Elisha, disciple of Eliyahu, followed his example and prayed for the revival of the son of the Shunemite.

Jonah ben Amitai, the very same boy that Eliyahu brought back from the dead, called out from the inside of the whale as we read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, “From the very belly of hell cried I, and You heard my voice” (Yona 2:3). Indeed, “The Lord is near and close to all that call upon Him, to all that call on Him in truth” (T'hilim 128:19).Eliyahu is considered in Jewish tradition to be the epitome of this art of Israel and major weapon throughout history.

First, in sorrow he ascribed the fate of the widow and her son, so different from the Divine role as the protector of widows, to his own shortcomings. These had been responsible also for the drying up of the Nahal Kerit. Then he stretched out over the body three times, so that all his prayer was geared to the boy, thereby intensifying his kavana. [“He warmed the body with his own, in accordance with many miracles that are achieved by copying natural acts-“- Radak]. After the third time, he called out, “My G-d, let this child’s soul return to him”. And the boy revived.

Later, on Har Carmel, when day drew to an end, Eliyahu prayed, “Hear me, O Lord, hear me”; we repeat likewise in all our selichot - “Aneinu, Aneinu, hear us, hear us”. Indeed, throughout the ages he returns to pray for Israel, to give advice and guidance to its scholars, to grant charity to our poor and weak, and protection in the hour of our need. On Moatzei Shabbat, with the advent of the weekdays with their tension and problems, we sing to his role as helper and protector. So ingrained has the figure of Eliyahu as a guide, savior and healer become that there are more legends and stories about him, than any other biblical character, even in other faiths and cultures.

This is Eliyahu for whom we place a special wine cup at the Seder in expectation that he will come as a harbinger of redemption, since in the same month that we were redeemed on Pesach, we will be redeemed in the future. Eliyahu will be the messenger bearing tidings of the coming of the Messiah. “I will send you Eliyahu the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 3:5-6).
This is the 34th installment in Dr. Tamari’s series on “Tanach and its messages for our times”

[The Parshat A'charei-K'doshim Homepage]
[The TORAH tidbits Homepage] [How to use TORAH tidbits]
[About The OU/NCSY Israel Center] [About TORAH tidbits]
 [www.ou.org]