Spiritual and
Ethical Issues in the Historical Books of Tanach;
JOSHUA, JUDGES, SAMUEL, KINGS (Nevi’im Rishonim) 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. Two Women and a Prophet (Melachim
Bet 4) The Midrash sees the woman who called to Elisha for help as being the widow of Ovadiah, chamberlain to Achav, who had disobeyed Jezebel by keeping alive in secret the prophets that she had ordered killed. The text describes him as one of the Bnei HaNivi'im, referring to the groups gathered around a prophet, originally Samuel. Such people, during the whole period of the first Temple, raised their religious and spiritual levels, until some of them are reported as prophets, albeit their names are unknown to us. It was the greatness of spirit of this woman that enabled him to hide and feed them despite the danger from Jezebel and despite the hunger of the drought. Now her creditor threatened to enslave her children as payment of his overdue debt and interest. Elisha answers her anguished call by instructing her to borrow all the jugs and vessels that she can and to pour the little oil remaining to her, into them without leaving the room and to pay off her debt thereby. Actually, the miracle could have been performed without these vessels but that would have appeared as a creation ex nihilo, something only possible for Hashem. The text uses the same words to describe the never-ending flow of oil that resulted, as it did regarding what his master Eliyahu had done for the widow from Tzarfat. However, there Eliyahu was beholden to the widow from Tzarfat for her hospitality despite her poverty, while Elisha was not. Furthermore, her hospitality is seen by our sages as a rebuke from Heaven to Eliyahu for bringing the drought and its subsequent hardships on Israel. Whereas here the miracle came not only as a testament to the woman's merit in her assisting the prophets of G-d but also as a Divine negation of the cause of her suffering. According to Midrash Tanchuma, her creditor was Yoram ben Achav. Thereby he stands accused of three sins; all of them an abuse of the role of a king in Judaism. Firstly he had lent Ovadiah money at interest in violation of the Torah's injunction; "You shall not lend him your money at interest" (Vayikra 25:37). "For lending money at interest Yoram died" (Tanchuma). Although there is no court-based death penalty for taking interest, yet he deserved heavenly justice since a king was supposed to encourage Torah observance amongst the people, not break the commandments himself. Secondly, Ovadiah's poverty and therefore his borrowing the money in the first place flowed from the charitable acts involved in saving the prophets of Hashem from the king's mother. This meant that in taking the interest, Yoram was aiding and abetting the evil that she aspired to do; there is a liability for assisting doers of evil. This is a case of the children following the footsteps of their father and their punishment explain "visiting of the sins of the fathers on their children" (Exodus 20:5). Thirdly, there is no provision for slavery as a penalty for non payment of debts. It is true that such payment is considered a mitzvah and as such is obligatory on debtors. This is symmetrical as the same Torah that commanded the creditor to extend loans, demanded that the debtor neither waste the money nor evade repayment. The bet din failing to get the creditor to waive his rights as an act of charity, has an obligation to seek out and sell the debtor's assets, allowing him only bare necessities; food for a year, work tools, the simplest of clothing for him, his wife and his children. This applied even in those cases where the debtor was poor and the creditor rich (Shulchan Arukh Chosen Mishpat 97). However, there is no halakhic provision for moving from this safeguard of the rights of the creditors, to their ability to sell debtors or enslave their families. This was simply an abuse of the king's power. There is an interesting responsum from the Rivash dating to 14th century Spain that makes the halakhic objection against slavery for no-payment of debts quite clear, even though that right was safeguarded in the loan contract. After all, Hashem had said "You, Israel, are My slaves" to which the Sages added: "and not slaves to slaves". This has been seen as an objection against an employee binding himself to long-term employment that could be seen as servitude (Shulchan Arukh, Choshen Mishpat 333). The actions of Yoram tell us about the social conditions in the Northern Kingdom of Israel; a picture that is clearly described by the prophet Amos who lived some 50 years after Elisha. "Because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes. They pant after [even] the dust on the heads of the poor and lay down beside the altars on clothes taken as pledges" (Amos 2:6-8). This is the 41st installment in Dr. Tamari’s serieson “Tanach and its messages for our times” [The
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