Pesach: Who Is Elijah?

Passover cup by Johann Jakob
Runnecke, 18th century,
Jewish Museum

During this week of Passover (Pesach, פֳּסַח), Jews have been gathered around tables to celebrate liberation. Our ceremony (seder, סֵדֶר) has fourteen steps, punctuated by four cups of wine. When we pour the fourth cup of wine for each person at the table, we also pour wine into a cup that has been standing untouched the whole evening: the cup of Elijah.

Then we stand up, and someone opens the door to invite Elijah inside to join us. (This is the second time we open the door during the seder; before the meal, we open it to invite “all who are hungry” to come in and eat with us.)

While we wait for Elijah, we read a short passage. The traditional reading, from the centuries when almost every non-Jew was an enemy, consists of three biblical quotations asking for God’s wrath to destroy the enemies of Jews:

Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not recognize you, and on kingdoms that do not proclaim your name; because they ate up Jacob and made his abode a desolation. (Psalm 79:6-7) Pour out on them your curse and let your rage engulf them. (Psalm 69:25) Pursue in rage, and annihilate them from under the heavens of God. (Lamentations 3:66)

The connection between this reading and Elijah is tenuous. However, Elijah is portrayed in a few stories from the first book of Kings as a wrathful zealot bent on destroying the worshipers of other gods.

Many modern seders replace this reading with something less dire that refers to biblical stories in which Elijah orders kings around, or rescues the unfortunate, or becomes an angel instead of dying.

After that, we sing a song with these words¹ before we close the door:

Eliyahu, hanavi (Elijah the prophet)
Eliyahu, haTishbi (Elijah the Tishbite)
Eliyahu, Eliyahu, Eliyahu haGiladi (Elijah the Giladite)
Bimheirah veyameinu (Quickly, in our days)
Yavo eleinu (May he come to us)
Im moshiach ben David (With the anointed one, descendant of David)

Moshiach (מָשִׁיחַ) is “messiah” in English. The Christian story is that the messiah arrived over 2,000 years ago as Jesus. The Jewish story is that the messiah (or the messianic age) will not arrive until the whole world has become a place of peace, justice, kindness, and wisdom. So naturally Jews hope Moshiach will come during our lifetimes.

But why do we also call for Elijah to come to us? It depends on which characteristic of the prophet—or angel—we consider.

Elijah the wrathful zealot

Elijah first appears in the Hebrew Bible after Ahab has become the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Ahab marries the Phoenician princess Jezebel, and erects an altar for Baal and a pole for Asherah in his capital city, Samaria. The prophet Elijah is driven by his desire to eliminate the worship of other gods in the kingdom of Israel. First he declares a long drought, presumably so the Israelites will be realize their own God, Y-H-V-H, has the power to destroy them. After three years of drought, he stages a dramatic contest between Y-H-V-H and Baal at Mount Carmel.

Elijah’s Sacrifice on Mt. Carmel,
by William Brassey Hole

When Elijah’s God wins, the Israelites prostrate themselves and shout:

“Y-H-V-H, he is the only god! Y-H-V-H, he is the only god!” Then Elijah said to them: “Seize the prophets of Baal! Don’t let any of them escape!” And they seized them, and Elijah took them down to the Wadi Kishon and slaughtered them there. (1 Kings 19:39-40)

Then God brings rain. (See my blog post: Haftarat Ki Tissa—1 Kings: Ecstatic versus Rational Prophets.)

Elijah’s zeal for God shows up again in a story about King Ahab’s successor, his son Achaziyahu. The new king falls out a window, and sends messengers to ask a god in Ekron whether he will recover. Elijah intercepts the messengers and tells them King Achaziyahu will die because he sought out a foreign god instead of asking a prophet of Y-H-V-H. The king sends fifty soldiers to arrest Elijah, and their captain climbs the hill where the prophet is sitting and orders him to come down. Elijah replies:

“If I am a man of God, fire will come down from the heavens and consume you and your fifty!” (2 Kings 1:10)

Obligingly, God incinerates the soldiers with fire from heaven. The king sends another fifty men, with the same result. The third time, the captain begs Elijah to please spare him and his men. No fire appears, and Elijah follows the captain to the palace, where he tells the king that he will not rise from his bed, but will die for his disloyalty to God. Achaziyahu dies.²

Elijah the insolent

Another approach to Elijah’s part of the Passover seder is to emphasize his refusal to submit to authority.

When Elijah first shows up in the bible, he is identified by his clan (Tishbi) and region (Gilead), as in the Passover song. Then, with no transition, he speaks abruptly to King Ahab.

Then Elijah the Tishbite, an inhabitant of Gilead, said to Ahab: “As Y-H-V-H lives, the God of Israel whom I wait on—there will be no dew nor rain these years unless my mouth pronounces it!” (1 Kings 17:1)

Whenever Elijah speaks to a king, he uses none of the customary courtesies. He never refers to himself as the king’s servant, nor says please, nor uses any honorifics. He does not respect human authority. (He also appears to be arrogant in his assumption that when he says a miracle will happen, God will follow through. But God always does. And when God gives him an order, Elijah always obeys.)

After three years of drought, God tells him:

“Go, appear to Ahab, and I will give rain to the face of the earth.” (1 Kings 18:1)

When he meets King Ahab outside the city of Samaria, Elijah criticizes him for following other gods, then gives him orders:

“And now, assemble all of Israel at Mount Carmel for me, along with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat from Jezebel’s table.” (1 Kings 18:19)

King Ahab obeys.

Elijah the compassionate

The prophet Elijah is high-handed with kings, soldiers, and the prophets of other gods. But he is thoughtful when it comes to the unfortunate. Some seders tell the story of how he saved a poor widow and her son.

After Elijah announces the long drought, God tells him where to hide from the agents of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. His second hiding place is the house of a widow and her son in a village near Phoenicia. When Elijah arrives, the widow tells him she has only enough flour and oil to bake a couple of biscuits³ before she and her son starve to death. Elijah tells her to make a small biscuit for him first, and promises that God will make a miracle so her jar never runs out of flour and her jug never runs out of oil until it rains again.⁴ The widow obeys the prophet, God makes the miracle, and Elijah lives in the room on the widow’s rooftop.

Then her son gets sick. When the boy stops breathing, Elijah carries him upstairs and lays him on his own bed.

Elijah Raises the Widow’s Son, by James Tissot, circa 1900

Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times, and he called out to Y-H-V-H and said: “Y-H-V-H, my God, please bring back the life inside this boy!” (1 Kings 17:21)

The boy revives.

In a later story, Elijah is compassionate even when he is in despair, believing that he has failed in his mission to convert the whole kingdom of Israel to worshiping only Y-H-V-H. He heads south into the Negev, hoping to die there instead of at the hand of Queen Jezebel.⁵ On the way he thoughtfully leaves his servant in the town of Beersheba, so the man will not die in the desert with him.⁶

Elijah the angel

The final biblical story about Elijah describes his non-death. His disciple Elisha knows it is Elijah’s last day on earth, and sticks close to his master, even though Elijah asks him to stay behind three times. When they reach the Jordan River, Elijah rolls up his mantle (cloak) and slaps the water with it. The river divides and the two men walk across the riverbed.

Elijah Carried Away into Heaven by a Chariot of Fire,
by James Tissot, circa 1900

And they kept on walking and talking. And hey! A chariot of fire and horses of fire! And they separated the two of them. And Elijah went up in a whirlwind to the heavens. (2 Kings 2:11)

Elisha watches, then picks up Elijah’s mantle.

According to later Jewish writings, Elijah becomes an angel (i.e. a supernatural messenger or emissary of God) after God’s whirlwind carries him up to the heavens. This concept first appears in the book of Malachi. In the third chapter God, addressing the Israelites, says:

“Here I am, sending my malakh; and he will clear the way before me, and suddenly the lord that you are seeking will come to the temple. And the malakh of the covenant that you desire, hey! He is coming!” (Malachi 3:1)

malakh (מַלְאַךְ) = messenger, emissary. When God sends a malakh, it is often translated into English as “angel”.

The text postpones identifying this malakh. The next verse warns that the arrival of God’s emissary is not all good news.

“But who can endure the day he comes? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the fire of a smelter and the lye of a fuller.” (Malachi 3:2)

The book of Malachi ends with God announcing:

“Behold, I am sending you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of Y-H-V-H comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers toward sons, and the hearts of sons toward fathers, lest I come and I strike the land with complete destruction.” (Malachi 3:23-24)

Now we know the malakh or angel is Elijah, centuries after he ascended to the heavens. The “day of Y-H-V-H” is a day of final judgment anticipated in some later books of the Hebrew Bible and in the Talmud. After that “day”, those whom God has found acceptable will live in “the world to come”, in which the Moshiach reigns.

But first, Elijah will do what he can to improve people’s hearts so they can enter the world of the Moshiach.

The tradition that Elijah is still among us as a malakh continued from the Talmud to 19^th-century Chassidic tales, in which Elijah appears disguised as an ordinary human being. He either rewards a good person or makes a man realize he has behaved badly and only later does the person realize it was Elijah.

This Elijah no longer despairs of reforming people, but enlightens them one at a time.

Which Elijah do you want to invite into your house—or into the world today? The zealot who wipes out people who are irredeemable? The insolent prophet who demonstrates that authority figures have less power than they think? The compassionate man who goes out of his way to save the lives of the unfortunate? Or the divine emissary who improves the world slowly, one person at a time, until Moshiach comes?

Jews also sing this song during the ritual of Havdalah marking the end of Shabbat and the start of a new week.
2 Kings 1:2-17.
The Hebrew word is translate here as “biscuit” is ugah, עֻגָה = a round, flat wheat cake baked on hot stones or ashes.
1 Kings 17:13-14.
Jezebel sends a messenger to tell Elijah that she is going to kill him (1 Kings 19:1-2).
1 Kings 19:3.

Haftarat Tazria—2 Kings: Subordination

Would you rather read a procedure manual or a story? This week’s double Torah portion, Tzaria and Metzora (Leviticus 12:1-15:32), provides a detailed manual for priests regarding a skin disease called tzaraat. But the two accompanying haftarah readings are stories about people with that disease.¹

The haftarah for Tazria stars Naaman, a rich Aramaean army commander who goes to the kingdom of Israel to cure his tzaraat. He is healed only after he humbles himself to the prophet Elisha. (See my blog post: Tazria & 2 Kings: A Sign of Arrogance.) But without the kindness of his subordinates, his mission would have failed.

A kind servant: the Israelite girl

Those with power can use it to be benevolent to their subordinates. But how can subordinates be benevolent to their superiors? The story of Naaman gives two examples of servants who help their masters without exercising power. The first is an Israelite captive who has become a slave.

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man lifnei his master, and high in favor because through [Naaman] Y-H-V-H had granted victory to Aram. And the man was a powerful landowner metzora. And Aramaeans went out in raiding parties, and they brought back from the land of Israel a young adolescent girl, and she became lifnei Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress: “If only my master were lifnei the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would take away his metzora.” (2 Kings 5:1-3)

lifnei (לִפְנֵי) = before, in front of, subordinate to. (The prefix le,לְ־ (to, toward, at, in relation to) + penei, פְּנֵי (face of—a form of the noun panim, פָּנִים= face, front). Therefore literally, lifnei = in relation to the face of.)

metzora (מְצֺרָע) = stricken with tzaraat (צָרַעַת), a skin disease (formerly and inaccurately translated as “leprosy”) characterized by one or more patches of scaly dead-white skin. These patches might also be streaked with red, and/or lower than the surrounding skin.²

Naaman is a very important person; he is subordinate to, lifnei, only the king of Aram. The captive young Israelite is a female slave, the most subservient rank in the Ancient Near East. She is subordinate to, lifnei, Naaman’s wife. A girl in her position might resent being seized by soldiers, taken to a foreign land, and forced to serve as a slave. She might well hate the husband of her mistress, who is a military commander and may even have led the raiding party that captured her.

On the other hand, most females in the Ancient Near East grew up expecting to be under the control of a male head of household, whether he was their father, husband, adult son (in the case of widows), or owner. Many girls in impoverished families were sold as slaves. The Israelite girl might be relieved that she is now living in comfort in a rich man’s house. And perhaps Naaman is true to his name, which means “Pleasant One” in Hebrew (from the root verb na-am, נָעַם = was pleasant, was agreeable.)

The Israelite girl is kind-hearted enough to wish that her master were cured of his skin disease, and she knows that tzaraat rarely heals. So she mentions a wonder-worker to her mistress: the prophet in Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel. When she says “If only my master were lifnei the prophet!” her Aramaean mistress assumes she means “If only my master were in front of the prophet!”, and passes on the information to her husband.³

Refusing subordination: Naaman

In the kingdom of Israel, anyone whom a priest certifies as having tzaraat is ritually impure and must live outside their town until they recover (if ever). Being metzora is easier in Aram. The disease is not considered contagious; we learn later in the story that the king of Aram leans on Naaman’s arm when he goes into the temple of Rimon in Damascus.⁴ And tzaraat does not prevent Naaman from living in Damascus, the capital of Aram, or from leading his troops. Yet his skin disease is unsightly, and may be unpleasant in other ways as well. Naaman wants to be cured. So he takes chariots, horses, men, gifts, and a letter from his king to Israel.

And Naaman came with his horses and with his chariots, and he stood at the entrance of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent to him a messenger saying: “Go, and you must bathe seven times in the Jordan. Then your flesh will be restored, and you will be ritually pure.” (2 Kings 5:9-10)

Just as the word lifnei sometimes indicates a subordinate position in Biblical Hebrew, someone who stands and waits in front of someone else is a subordinate (or is temporarily assuming a subordinate position as a polite gesture). Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house riding in a chariot, but when he stands waiting at the door he is in a subservient position. By refusing to see Naaman in person, Elisha underlines the idea that he outranks the Aramaean commander.

Then Naaman became enraged, and he went off and he said: “Hey, I thought he would certainly go and stand and call in the name of Y-H-V-H, his god, and wave his hand at the place, and he would take away the tzaraat. Aren’t Amanah and Farpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I bathe in them and become pure?” Vayefen and he went away in a rage. (2 Kings 5:11-12)

vayefen (וַיֶּפֶן) = and he faced away, and he turned away. (From the same root as panim and lifnei.)

Naaman knows he is a very important person. He expects the prophet to treat him as at least an equal.Elisha ought to invite the commander inside his house and stand waiting in front of him. After that, Naaman thinks, Elisha ought to personally wave his hand over the diseased patch of skin as he calls on his God.

In his resentment that Elisha is acting like his superior, Naaman also interprets Elisha’s order to bathe in the Jordan as an assertion that Israel’s river is superior to either of the two small rivers in Damascus.

Naaman is willing to be subordinate to the king of Aram, but not to the prophet in Israel. So he stops waiting lifnei Elisha’s door. He turns his face away in rejection.

More kind servants: Naaman’s retinue

The Cleansing of Naaman, Biblia Sacra Germanica, 1466

When Naaman walks away, his own attendants try to make him see reason. They are not in a position to order him to follow Elisha’s orders. But they can offer a reasonable argument.

Then his attendants came forward and spoke to him, and they said: “Sir!” They said: “[If] the prophet said to you [to do] a big thing, wouldn’t you do it? And yet he only said to you: Bathe and be pure.” (2 Kings 5:13)

Naaman listens, swallows his pride, and does the sensible thing.

Then he went down and he dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had spoken. And his flesh came back like the flesh of an adolescent boy, and he was ritually pure. (2 Kings 5:14)

Choosing subordination: Naaman

Then he came back to the man of God, he and his whole camp [of men]. And he came and he stood waiting lefanav, and he said: “Hey! Please! I know that there is no god in the whole world unless it is in Israel. So now, please take a blessing from your servant!” (2 Kings 5:15)

lefanav (לְפָנָיו) = to his face, in front of him, subordinate to him.

When one important person in the bible speaks to another, he often calls himself “your servant” to be polite. Here Naaman also stands waiting in front of Elisha, in a subordinate position. And he acknowledges that he (and everyone else) is subordinate to the God of Israel.

Naaman has brought silver, gold, and ten outfits of expensive clothing⁵ to Samaria so he could pay the prophet for a cure. But now the two men stand in a different relationship. They are not buyer and seller, but a man of God and a witness of God’s power.So Naaman begs Elisha to accept a “blessing”. They both know he means a tangible gift, not just words of blessing.⁶

Choosing subordination: Elisha

But [Elisha] said: “By the life of Y-H-V-H, whom I stand waiting lefanav, if I take—” (2 Kings 5:16)

Elisha declares that he is subordinate only to God. His unfinished oath is a polite way of saying that he refuses to take anything from Naaman. Since Elisha works only for God, he does not sell his services. He caused Naaman’s healing in order to prove a point, not for any material benefit.

After the Elisha refuses Naaman’s second offer of a gift, Naaman asks him for a gift: as much dirt as two mules can carry. He explains that then he can go home to Aram and create a patch of Israelite ground where he can worship Elisha’s god. Naaman promises he will never sacrifice to any other god again, and hopes the God of Israel will forgive him for continuing to provide an arm for the king of Aram to lean on when the king enters the temple of Rimon.

And [Elisha] said to him: “Go in peace.” And he went away from him some distance. (2 Kings 5:19)

“Go in peace” is a polite way for a superior or father figure to give permission.⁷ Thus the haftarah ends with the new pecking order, in which Naaman has become a willing subordinate to God, and perhaps to God’s prophet Elisha, as well as to the king of Aram.

The insubordinate subordinate

Although the haftarah reading ends there, the story of Naaman continues in 2 Kings. Elisha’s servant Geihazi thinks his master was wrong about not taking anything from the rich Aramaean. So he runs after Naaman and his retinue. Naaman steps down from his chariot to greet him. And Geihazi lies to him, saying:

“My master sent me to say: Hey, now this: two adolescent boys just came to me from the hills of Efrayim, from the disciples of the prophets. Please give them a kikar of silver and two changes of clothing.” (2 Kings 5:22)

Geihazi Asks Naaman for a Reward, by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, 1430

Geihazi does not dare claim that Elisha changed his mind and now wants the entire gift, but he is clever enough to invent a pretext for getting part of it. Naaman insists on giving him twice as much silver as he asked for, and dispatches two of his own servants to carry the clothes and the two bags of silver back to Samaria. At the city gate Geihazi takes the goods. If he had wanted to leave Elisha and set himself up with his own farm or business, he should have exchanged them at the marketplace then and there. Instead he brings the silver and clothing into Elisha’s house.

And he entered and he stood waiting before his master, and Elisha said to him: “From where, Geihazi?” (2 Kings 6:25)

Geihazi claims he did not go anywhere, but his master knows he is lying. Elisha accuses him of taking money from Naaman to buy things for himself, and adds:

“The tzaraat of Naaman will cling to you and to your descendants forever!” And [Geihazi] went away from lefanav, metzora like snow. (2 Kings 5:27)

Insubordination is not always punished so severely. Yet after rereading the whole story of Naaman, I am in favor of being a helpful subordinate, like Naaman’s attendants and his wife’s slave. If your superiors do you no harm, why not be kind and improve their lives—without stepping on their toes?

And if your superior is not benign, it is better to quit the job altogether than to lie and connive behind the boss’s back. Quitting is easier now, in a world where slavery has become rare, though finding a new job can still be hard. But if you do not respect your superior, you should still act so that you can respect yourself. Otherwise, even if your skin looks good, your soul will be disfigured.

The haftarah for Metzora features four starving Israelites forced to live outside the city walls because of their disease. See my posts Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: Insiders & Ousiders and Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: A Response to Rejection.
Leviticus 13:2-3, 13:10-22, 13:18-28, 13:42-44. Cf. Numbers 12:10-12.
Ancient Aramaic and Biblical Hebrew are closely related Semitic languages, but it would take a while for the Israelite girl to master Aramaic, and nobody would expect her to express subtle shades of meaning.
2 Kings 5:18.
2 Kings 5:5. Cf. the fancy tunic Jacob gives Joseph in Genesis 37:3-4, and Joseph’s gifts of clothing to his brothers in Genesis 45:22.
Cf. Jacob’s “blessing” to Esau in Genesis 33:11.
2 Kings 5:19.
Cf. Exodus 4:18, where Moses’ father-in-law says it before Moses leaves him and returns to Egypt..
2 Kings 5:20-27.

Haftarat Vayeira—2 Kings: Delegated Miracles

This week’s haftarah reading opens:

A woman, the wife of one of the disciples of the prophets, cried out to Elisha, saying: “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant was a fearer of God. And a creditor is coming to take my two children as slaves!” (2 Kings 4:1)

Although “your servant” is often used as a polite form of address in the Hebrew Bible, as in older English literature, this widow’s husband might well have been one of the prophet Elisha’s subordinates; he does head a company of disciples in a later story.¹

The Prophet Elisha and the Widow with her Sons, by Rembrandt van Rijn, circa 1657

And Elisha said to her: “What can I do for you? Tell me, what is there in your house?” (2 Kings 6:2)

All she has is a small jug of oil, so Elisha makes a miracle in which the oil keeps coming while she pours it into one container after another, until every empty container she could borrow is full.

And she came and told the ish ha-elohim, and he said: “Go sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your children can live on the rest.” (2 Kings 4:7)

ish ha-elohim (אִישׁ הָאֱלֺהִים) = man of God.

The title ish ha-elohim or ish elohim appears 75 times in the Hebrew Bible. Usually it refers to a prophet—someone who delivers God’s warnings or verdicts to kings and crowds. Yet King David is called a man of God three times.² David is not a prophet, but God treats him as a favorite and forgives him for his many moral transgressions.

The person called ish ha-elohim the most often is the prophet Elisha, with 28 references, all in the second book of Kings. He is not a model of morality, either; when a bunch of little boys make fun of his bald head, he curses them in the name of God, and two bears emerge from the woods and mangle 42 children.³

Is Elisha an ish ha-elohim only because he is a prophet? Or does that designation say something further about his relationship with God?

Elisha is the disciple of Elijah, another prophet who is often called a man of God. Like his mentor, Elisha despises the kings of Israel. He passes on God’s warnings and verdicts to them, but avoids seeing them in person as much as he can. Also like Elijah, he performs miracles for individual human beings in his spare time.⁴

Elisha initiates two more miracles in the second story in this week’s haftarah reading: a miraculous pregnancy and the resurrection of a dead boy.

The haftarah is paired with this week’s Torah portion from the book of Genesis, Vayeira, which also features the annunciation of a miraculous pregnancy. In Vayeira, three divine messengers (often called angels in English translations) disguised as men come to Abraham’s tent. He gives them generous hospitality. Before they get up from the meal Abraham serves them, one of the divine beings says:

“I will certainly return to you at the season of life, and hey! A son for Sarah, your wife!” (Genesis 18:10)

Sarah overhears, and laughs. She knows that both she and Abraham are too old to have a baby.

Then God said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can it be true I will bear a child, when I am old?’ Is anything too extraordinary for God? At the appointed time I will return to you, at the season of life, and Sarah will have a son.” (Genesis 18:13-14)

In the haftarah an unnamed woman in the town of Shuneim offers Elisha even more generous hospitality than Abraham did for his visitors.

One day Elisha passed through Shuneim, and a wealthy woman was there, and she prevailed upon him to eat a meal. And it happened whenever he passed through, he turned aside there to eat a meal. And she said to her husband: “Hey, please! I know that the one who passes by regularly is a holy ish ha-elohim. Let us make, please, a small walled upper chamber [on our roof] and let us put a bed and a table and a chair and a lampstand there, and it will be when he comes to us he can turn aside there.” One day he [Elisha] came there and he turned aside into the upper chamber and lay down there. And he said to Geichazi, his servant: “Call this Shuneimite woman.” (2 Kings 4:8-11)

Elisha wants to repay the woman for her ongoing hospitality, but does not take the trouble to go downstairs and talk to her himself. Nor does he ever use her name. Elisha asks his servant to tell the woman that Elisha could use his influence with the king or the army commander on her behalf. She turns down the offer.

Then Geichazi said: “Actually, she has no son, and her husband is old.” (2 Kings 4:14)

Elisha tells his servant to call the woman up to his doorway.

And he said: “At this appointed time, at the season of life, you will be embracing a son.” And she said: “Don’t, my lord, man of God, don’t you lie to your maidservant!” (2 Kings 4:15-16)

Both Sarah in Genesis and the Shuneimite woman in 2 Kings are childless and have old husbands. They are certain that they cannot conceive. The annunciations they receive use some of the same words. But the speakers are different. Sarah hears the news from God’s voice, speaking through a manifestation that looks like a man but is actually divine. The Shuneimite woman hears the news from an actual human being, a man of God who somehow initiates miracles on his own.

Geichazi, not God, suggests that pregnancy would be a good reward for the Shuneimite. Then Elisha confidently predicts she will have a baby, without consulting God. And God cooperates.

And the woman conceived and she gave birth to a son at this appointed time, at the season of life, that Elisha had spoken of to her. (2 Kings 4:17)

The third miracle in this week’s haftarah occurs after the Shuneimite woman’s son goes out into the field with his father, and suddenly gets a piercing headache. A servant carries him back to the house, and at noon he dies on his mother’s lap. She carries him upstairs, lays him on the bed reserved for Elisha, and hurries off on a donkey without telling anyone what happened.

And she went on and she came to the ish ha-elohim at Mount Carmel. And when the ish ha-elohim saw her across the way, then he said to Geichazi, his servant: “Hey, the Shuneimite woman is over there! Now hurry, please, and call her and say to her: Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with your child?” (2 Kings 4:25-26)

Elisha still does not refer to the woman by her name, and he still uses his servant as an intermediary so he will not have to speak to her directly.

She tells Geichazi everything is fine, but when she reaches Elisha she seizes his feet. Geichazi steps forward to push her away, but Elisha stops him with the observation that this woman is in serious distress, and God has not told him why.

Then she said: “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Didn’t I say: Don’t you give me false hope?” (2 Kings 4:28)

At this, Elisha knows what happened. He gives his staff to Geichazi, and orders him to say nothing to anyone he meets along the way, and place the staff on the dead boy’s face. Elisha apparently believes that just as God keeps delegating the power of working miracles to him, he can delegate that power to Geichazi.

But the woman does not believe it. She insists on leading Elisha back to her house. When they meet Geichazi on his return trip, Geichazi informs them, “The boy has not awakened.”

Elisha’s Servant Geichazi, by by Bernhard Rode, 18th century

Elisha climbs up to the rooftop chamber, where the boy lies dead on Elisha’s bed.

And he entered, and he shut the door against the two of them, and he prayed to God. And he climbed up and he lay over the child, and he put his mouth on its mouth, and his eyes on its eyes, and his palms on its palms, and he bowed over it. And the flesh of the child became warm. (2 Kings 33-34)

Perhaps Elisha realizes that he is not in charge of his miracles. He cannot delegate his power to someone else. And he himself has worked miracles only because God has delegated that ability to him—so far. Humbled, Elisha prays to God this time before he tries to make another miracle. And then puts his whole self into it, mouth, eyes, palms, and body.

We cannot know why God decides to abet Elisha in his miracles. He may be a “man of God” in the same way as King David: God is charmed by something about him, and acts with favoritism.

Similarly, we cannot know why some people today seem to lead charmed lives in which miracles are commonplace, while others are more ethical yet struggle for every inch of progress. But the story of Elisha’s third miracle in this week’s haftarah is a warning that we should never overreach, or take our success for granted.

2 Kings 6:1-7, in which Elisha makes an axe head float.
King David is called ish ha-elohim retroactively in Nehemiah 12:24 and 36:2, and in 2 Chronicles 8:14.
2 Kings 2:23-24.
In 1 Kings 18:1-39, God merely tells Elijah to appear before King Ahab. On his own initiative, Elijah sets up a contest between the God of Israel and the Baal of Phoenicia, and God plays along by igniting a miraculous fire on Elijah’s altar. In 2 Kings 1:1-10, King Ahab’s son sends soldiers to arrest Elijah, but the man of God calls for fire to come down from heaven and consume the soldiers. Again God cooperates.

Shoftim: More Important Than War, Part 1

Wars of conquest and even genocide are glorified in the books of Numbers and Joshua. (For a blatant biblical example, see my post Mattot: Killing the Innocent.)

Yet sometimes in Deuteronomy a kinder voice comes through. In this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim (“Judges”), Moses looks ahead to when the Israelites have already taken over most of Canaan and established their own country. Then a king will have more important duties than wars of conquest; Moses lists four. Then a man will sometimes have more important duties than serving as a soldier in battle; Moses lists four of these, also.¹

King, Hazor, 15-13th cent. BCE, Israel Museum

This week’s post will cover the four things a good king must do. Next week’s post will cover the four things that are more important than serving as a soldier.

A good king

When you have entered the land that God, your God, is giving to you, and you have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say: “I will put a king over myself, like all the nations around me,” you may certainly put a king over yourself—one that God, your God, will choose. (Deuteronomy/Devarim 17:14-15)

Once on his throne (all the kings of the Israelites were male), the king would have to obey four rules, all of which would make the conquest of foreign countries more difficult:

He must not accumulate horses.
He must not accumulate wives, especially foreign women who worship other gods.
He must not accumulate too much silver and gold.
He must read the Torah every day.

This description applies to Josiah/Yoshiyahu, a young king of Judah in the 7^th century B.C.E. At age sixteen, “he began to seek out the God of David, his forefather …” (2 Chronicles 34:3). At 26, he orders repairs for the temple in Jerusalem, and the high priest Hilkiah/Chilkiyahu reports:

“I have found a book of the torah in the house of God.” (2 Kings 22:8)

torah (תוֹרָה) = teaching, instruction; the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. (From the root verb yorah, יֺרָה = teach, instruct.)

Josiah hearing the book of the law, 1873

Galvanized by this scroll, King Josiah demands exclusive worship of the God of Israel throughout the Kingdom of Judah and parts of the former Kingdom of Israel to the north. He demands that his people worship only at the temple in Jerusalem, he reinstitutes Passover, and he destroys the shrines, priests, and idols of other gods.²

Modern scholars propose that Hilkiah’s scroll was a substantial part of the book of Deuteronomy, either the early core (chapters 5-26) or the code of laws in chapters 12-20. They point to various items in the story of Josiah’s reign that appear as laws in Deuteronomy, but are not mentioned in the first four books of the bible.³

Some passages in Deuteronomy imply praise of King Josiah and criticism of earlier kings. In this week’s Torah portion, Moses’ four rules for kings seem to be veiled criticism of King Solomon/Shlomoh, whose reign over a united Israel would have taken place during the 10^th century B.C.E.

1) He must not accumulate horses for himself, and he must not send people back to Egypt in order to accumulate horses, for God said to you: “You must not find an excuse to turn back on that road again.” (Deuteronomy 17:16)

Israelites used donkeys for riding, not horses. Throughout the Ancient Near East horses were used to pull war chariots. Charioteers usually defeated foot soldiers—unless God intervened, as when 600 Egyptian chariots tried to cross the Reed Sea.⁴ God does not say “You must not find an excuse to turn back on that road again” until this week’s Torah portion, but several times in the books of Exodus and Numbers the Israelites in the wilderness come up with an excuse to head back to Egypt, and God acts to prevent them.⁵

By the time of Josiah, the kings of Judah were not only keeping horses and chariots, but dedicating them to the sun god Shemesh.

And he [Josiah] abolished the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the Shemesh, from the entrance of the house of God to … the outskirts, and he burned the chariots of the Shemesh in a fire. (2 Kings 23:11)

Despite this loyal action, God does not intervene when the army of Egypt under Pharaoh Nekho fights the army of Judah under King Josiah. The second book of Chronicles explains that the pharaoh sends messengers to Josiah asking for safe passage through Judah on his way to fight the Assyrians to the north. But Josiah “did not listen to the words of Nekho from the mouth of God, and he came out to fight on the plains of Megiddo.” (2 Chronicles 35:22). The Egyptians win, and an arrow kills King Josiah, who is riding in a horse-drawn chariot.

Three centuries earlier, King Solomon buys horses from Egypt.⁶ He keeps 12,000 horses and 1,400 chariots—a substantial military force.⁷ Although the bible does not describe his battles, it does say that Solomon exacts tribute from countries on Israel’s borders, and enforces punishing corvée labor on the Israelites in the north (as the pharaoh did to the enslaved Israelites in Egypt).⁸

2) And he must not accumulate wives for himself, so that his leivav will not veer away. (Deuteronomy 17:17)

leivav = heart (literally), mind, inner self, seat of emotions and thoughts.

Only two of King Josiah’s wives are mentioned in the bible: Chamutal of Livnah (a town in western Judah) and Zevudah of Rumah (a village west of the Sea of Galilee in what was the Kingdom of Israel until the Assyrian conquest of 701 B.C.E.).⁹ Both of these women are of Israelite descent, not foreigners.

Israel and its neighbors in Solomon’s time

King Solomon, however, has 700 royal wives and 300 concubines. His first wife is the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt.¹⁰ He loves and becomes attached to Pharaoh’s daughter and to women from the royal families of Moab, Ammon, Edom, Phoenicia, and Hatti.¹¹ Although at the beginning of his kingship he builds the first temple to the God of Israel in Jerusalem, in his old age he becomes more devoted to his foreign wives than to God.

And it happened in his old age, Solomon’s wives turned his leivav away after other gods, and the leivav of Solomon was not with God, his God, like the leivav of his father, David, had been. (1 Kings 11:4)

King Solomon even builds shrines for the foreign gods Khemosh and Molekh.¹² Thus the second rule for a king in this week’s Torah portion can be read as another veiled criticism of Solomon.

3) And he must not accumulate too much silver and gold for himself. (Deuteronomy 17:17)

If an Israelite king kept more money than he needed to pay for the basic functions of kingship, he was disobeying the biblical injunctions to support the poor, widows and orphans, resident aliens, and Levites (religious functionaries who lived on donations).¹³

King Josiah takes this responsibility seriously. When he reinstitutes the observance of Passover,

Josiah contributed lambs and goat kids for the people numbering 30,000, and 3,000 cattle, everything for the Passover sacrifices for everyone who was present. These were from the property of the king. (2 Chronicles 35:7)

But the description of King Solomon’s palace indicates that he uses excess gold for his own luxury. He decorates the palace with 200 shields and 300 bucklers of hammered gold. All his drinking cups and other utensils are also gold.¹⁴

4) And it shall be when he sits upon his throne of kingship, then he must write for himself a copy of this torah on a scroll, from [the scroll] in front of the priests of the Levites. And it must be with him, and he must read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to be in awe of God, his God, to observe all the words of this torah and these decrees, to do them. (Deuteronomy 17:18)

The fourth rule establishes that Israelite kings are not above the law. The king’s most important job is to follow God’s rules. To do this, he must keep on rereading them so he does not forget any, and so they immediately come into his mind when he faces a relevant situation.

Once again, King Josiah serves as an example of a good king.

Solomon Reading from the Torah of Moses, French manuscript, 13th cent. CE **(In the bible that king is Josiah, not Solomon!)**

The king went up to the house of God, along with all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and the prophets and all the people from small to big. And he read out loud all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been found in the house of God. And the king stood on a platform and he cut the covenant in front of God: to follow God and to observe [God’s] commandments and testimonies and decrees with all [their] leiv and with all [their] soul, to carry out the words of this covenant, the one written on this scroll. And all the people stood with the covenant. (2 Kings 23:2-3)

leiv (לֵב) = a short version of the word leivav = heart, mind, inner emotions and thought.

Not so King Solomon.

And God felt angry with Solomon because he had turned away his leivav from being with God, the God of Israel … And God said to Solomon: ‘… You have not observed my covenant and my decrees that I commanded.’ (1 Kings 11:9, 11:11)

These four rules for kings can still show us how to do good instead of make war. If a king must not accumulate war horses, then today every head of state should make treaties rather than weapons, and every individual should learn how to give up violence.

If a king must avoid marrying women who will tempt him to turn away from God, then today every head of state should avoid listening to those who advise taking office for the sake of power rather than service, and every individual should avoid listening to people who tempt them away from their own standards.

If a king must not accumulate too much silver and gold, then today every head of state should avoid using their position for personal gain, and every individual should learn to care more about people and actions than about wealth.

Finally, if a king must copy, read, and reread the Torah, then today every head of state should read their country’s constitution and key laws, consult with experts in every field requiring action, and question the morality of each option before acting. And every individual should engage in study before speaking out or voting.

Then we would have more than a good king; we would have a good world.

Next week: four more startling rules in the portion Shoftim, this time about who must be excused from military service, in Shoftim: More Important Than War, Part 2.

—

Unlike today’s nation of Israel, the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah did not use women as soldiers in battle. (However, in Judges 4:1-22 the prophetess Devorah acts as the general of the Israelite tribes behind the scenes, and Jael kills the enemy general when he is in her tent.)
2 Kings 22-11 through 23:25.
Including the temple (a.k.a. the house of God) in Jerusalem as the only legitimate place for offerings to God, the celebration of Passover at the temple rather than at home, and the language of passages in which the people pledge themselves to a covenant with God. (W. Gunther Plaut, “Introducing Deuteronomy”, The Torah: A Modern Commentary, ed. by W. Gunther Plaut, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, New York, 1981, pp. 1290-1294.)
Exodus 14:1-30.
Exodus 14:10-14, 15:26, 16:2-4, 17:3-6; Numbers 11:4-6, 14:2-4.
2 Kings 23:28-30.
Solomon’s father, King David, hamstrings 1,600 of the horses he captures in a battle with the king of Tzovah, keeping only 100 for his own use (2 Samuel 8:4). King Solomon buys horses in 1 Kings 10:28.
1 Kings 10:26.
1 Kings 10:25 and 11:28.
2 Kings 23:30-36.
1 Kings 3:1.
1 Kings 11:1-3.
1 Kings 11:7-8.
The book of Deuteronomy requires all landowners to support these groups in 14:27-29, 15:4-11, 24:19-21, and 26:12.
1 Kings 10:16 and 0:21.

Acharey Mot & Kedoshim: Fire of the Molekh

(We are moving into a more permanent home on the Oregon coast, now that the pandemic has put a hiatus in our travels abroad. While I am unpacking next week, you may want to read last year’s post on next week’s Torah portion, Emor: Libations.)

מלך

Offering to Molech, Bible Pictures, by Charles Foster, 1897

And you must not give any of your offspring to pass through for the molekh, and you must not profane the name of your God; I am Y-H-V-H. (Leviticus/Vayikra 18:21)

molekh (מֹלֶךְ) = melekh (מֶלֶךְ) = king, spelled with the vowel marks of boshet (בֺּשֶׁת) = shame.

This command in Acharey Mot (“After the death”), one of this week’s two Torah portions, contains the first occurrence of the word molekh in the Torah—if you are reading the standard Masoretic text. If you read a Torah scroll, which has no vowel marks, it looks the same as a command not to give your offspring to “the king” (melekh).¹

The prohibition above raises two questions:

How does giving your offspring (children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren) to the molekh profane the name of the God of Israel?
What does “to pass through” mean?

Profaning the name

The usual biblical way to profane God’s name appears in this week’s second Torah portion, Kedoshim (“Holy ones”):

And you must not swear by my name for a falsehood, and profane the name of your God; I am Y-H-V-H. (Leviticus 19:12)

Using God’s personal four-letter name to give false testimony demeans that name by treating it as merely a trick word for pulling off a wicked deed.

Perhaps giving a child to the molekh demeans a different name of God. Psalm 47:7-8 considers God “our king” and “king of all the earth”. Giving children to another god called “king” (מלך), one who demands an unholy deed, demeans God’s name and reputation.

Later in Kedoshim God pronounces two penalties for this serious offense:

Any man of the Israelites, or from the foreign sojourners sojourning in Israel, who gives any of his offspring to the molekh must certainly be put to death; the people of the land must pelt him with stones. And I, I shall give my attention to that man and cut him off from among his people, because he gave one of his offspring to the molekh, intentionally making my holy ones impure and profaning my holy name. (Leviticus 20:2-3)

Even if the people do not stone the molekh-worshipper, God will still “cut him off”² along with

… all the whores after him from among the people who whore after the molekh. You must make yourselves holy and you must be holy, because I, Y-H-V-H, am your God.” (Leviticus 20:5)

Throughout the Torah the God of Israel demands both exclusive worship (being faithful to God instead of “whoring” after other gods) and adherence to God’s rules for holy behavior.

Passing through fire

King Josiah of Judah begins his campaign for exclusive worship of one God by clearing the effects of other gods out of the temple in Jerusalem: an Asherah idol, utensils for worshiping Baal and Asherah, and enclosures woven for Asherah. Next Josiah demolishes the shrines in Judah where unauthorized worship is going on, and then:

He desecrated the burning-place which is in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to prevent passing a son or a daughter through fire for the molekh. (2 Kings 23:10)

The second book of Chronicles describes the same practice during the time of Josiah’s grandfather, King Menashe,³ confirms that there was an established tradition of passing children through a fire in the valley of Ben-Hinnom below Jerusalem.⁴

Model of Jerusalem: Valley of Ben Hinnom below Herod’s city wall, Valley of Kidron right. Israel Museum (photo by M.C.)

King Josiah discourages this practice by desecrating the place where it happens. Jeremiah, who prophesies from Josiah’s reign until after the Babylonian army destroys Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., discourages the practice by reporting that God never wanted people to do it in the first place.

And they built shrines for the burning-place in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, and which was definitely not on my mind. (Jeremiah 7:31)

Molekh, Die Alten Judischen Heiligthumer by Johann Lund, 1711 (7 ovens from *Yalkut Shimoni;* bull head from unknown source)

And they built shrines for the Baal in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, for passing their sons and their daughters to the molekh, which I did not command them, and it was not on my mind to do this abomination … (Jeremiah 32:35)

Jeremiah makes it clear that the “king” worshipped in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom is not the God of Israel.

According to modern commentator Jacob Milgrom, some Israelites might have believed that God wanted people to pass their offspring through the fire in a ritual that may or may not have burned them to death. Alternatively, Milgrom wrote, people might have believed in two gods, the king of the heavens (God the melekh, worshiped in the temple on top of a hill in Jerusalem) and the king of the underworld (the molekh, worshiped in the valley below).⁵ Jeremiah 32:35 denounces both beliefs, insisting that there is only one God and God never wanted people to burn their children.

מלך

The Hebrew Bible does not say whether a child who was passed through, between, or over the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom survived the experience. One Talmudic opinion is that the child was led along a latticework of bricks between two fires; another is that the child leaped over a small bonfire.⁶

On the other hand, the Talmud shortens Valley of Ben Hinnom (Gey Ben Hinnom in Hebrew) to Gehinnom elsewhere in the Talmud. The rabbis imagine Gehinnom, where the fire for the molekh burned, as the opening to a vast underground fire where the souls of the wicked go after death.⁷ (The righteous go straight to the Garden of Eden.) Burning in Gehinnom purifies the souls of the wicked, which are eventually redeemed.

I think the myth of Gehinnom is actually a return to the belief, denounced by Jeremiah, that God desired the burning of children in Ben Hinnom. Several Talmud tractates claim that God created Gehinnom and the Garden of Eden before creating the world.⁸ Therefore the melekh of heaven who created all the earth, and the molekh of the underworld who burns souls and commands passing children through fire, are actually one and the same god.

So why did the Masoretes replace the word melekh with molekh in passages about passing children through fire? It strikes me as one of many attempts to dodge the theodicy or “problem of evil”: How can God be both all-good and the source of everything that exists, including evil?

I say forget the molekh, and wrestle directly with the problem.

—

For centuries the Hebrew Bible was written with consonants but no vowels. When the Masoretes added vowel marks in the 6th–10th centuries C.E. they also assigned the vowels in the word boshet to seven appearances of the word for “king”, turning מֶלֶך (melekh) into מֺלֶךְ (molekh).
In the Torah being “cut off”, karet, means either dying prematurely, dying without children, or dying in spiritual isolation. In the Talmud it can also mean being excluded from the World to Come (as in Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 64b).
Menashe, who ruled the kingdom of Judah circa 697-643 B.C.E., is described in 2 Chronicles 33:6 as worshiping false gods and passing his own sons through the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. His grandson Josiah ruled circa 640–609 B.C.E.
Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 64a, assumes that parents also handed over their children to priests of the molekh.
Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus (A Continental Commentary), Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2004, p. 199.
Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 64b.
See Talmud Bavli, Eiruvin 19a. Jews did not adopt the idea that souls survive death until the second century B.C.E. The idea of souls burning in an underground fire came from Greek and Persian sources, which Jews developed into the myth of Gehinnom (later called Gehenna) and Christians developed into the myths of Hell and Purgatory. The Talmud was written during the third through fifth centuries C.E.
Talmud Bavli, Pesachim 54a and Nedarim 39b.

Pinchas: New Moon

The moon waxes to a full, bright circle; then it wanes until it disappears. In the Hebrew calendar the new moon is not the invisible one, but the first thin curved line to appear the blue daytime sky. It sets just after the sun sets, and the first day of a month begins.

The book of Leviticus/Vayikra prescribes offerings at the altar for annual holidays, for Shabbat every week, and for morning and evening every day. But the new moon is not singled out for its own monthly celebration until the book of Numbers/Bemidbar.

And on your days of rejoicing, and at your appointed times, and on the beginnings of chadesheykhem, you shall blow trumpets over your rising-offering and over your slaughter-sacrifices of your wholeness offerings. (Numbers/Bemidbar 10:10)

chadesheykhem (חָדְשֵׁיכֶם) = your months. (A form of the noun chodesh, חֺדֶשׁ = month, new moon. From the root verb chadash, חָדַשׁ = renew.)

New moon at the altar

What offerings are prescribed for the new moon? We find out in this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas.

And at the beginnings of chadesheykhem you shall offer a rising-offering for God: two bulls of the herd, and one ram, and seven yearling lambs, unblemished. (Numbers 28:11)

(I refer to an olah (עֺלָה) as a “rising-offering” because the Hebrew word comes from the verb alah (עָלָה) = rose, ascended, went up. What rises in an olah is smoke, when the animal is completely burned up for God.)¹

Each animal is burned with its own measure of fine flour mixed with oil,

…a rising-offering of soothing scent, a fire-offering for God. And their libations² shall be wine, half a hin for a bull, and a third of a hin for the ram, and a quarter of a hin for a lamb. This is the rising-offering of chodesh in chadesho for the chakeshey the year. And one hairy goat for a guilt-release offering³ for God … (Numbers 28:14)

chadesho (חַדְשׁוֹ) = its renewal. (From the root verb chadash.)

chadeshey (חָדְשֵׁי) = months of, new moons of. (Another form of chodesh.)

What we learn about the observance of the new moon in the book of Numbers is that there must be a rising-offering on the altar with a specific combination of animals, grain products, and wine; and that a trumpet is blown when the offering takes place.

New moon at the table

When King Saul becomes insanely jealous of his young general David, he orders David killed. David talks with Jonathan, his best friend and Saul’s son and heir.

And David said to Jonathan: “Hey, chodesh is tomorrow and I should definitely sit with the king to eat. But let me go, and I will hide in the countryside until the third evening.” (1 Samuel 10:5)

Jonathan urges his beloved friend to flee, and the two young men work out the logistics.

This passage is famous for Jonathan’s declaration of love and allegiance to David. But it also shows that at the time of King Saul (around the 11th century BCE) the observance of the new moon included an obligatory feast at the king’s table for his officers.

New moon with a prophet

The woman of Shunem makes a room on the rooftop of her house where the prophet Elisha can stay whenever he visits the town. When her son dies suddenly, she lays him on Elisha’s bed, then goes out and asks her husband for a servant and a donkey so she can hurry to Elisha.

But he said: “Why are you going to him today? It is not chodesh and not Shabbat.” And she said: “Peace!” And she saddled the donkey … (2 Kings 4:23-24)

The woman tells no one that the boy has died, and she talks Elisha into coming back at once with her. The prophet miraculously brings her son back to life.

This story indicates that during the reign of King Yehoram of the northern kingdom of Israel (9^th century BCE), travelling prophets conducted ceremonies for their followers on the sabbath every week, and on the new moon every month.

New moon outdoors

After the Roman army destroyed the second temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, it was never rebuilt as a Jewish temple, and animal offerings gradually ceased for Jews.⁴ The old method of worship was replaced by prayers and good deeds.

Only a few centuries after the fall of the second temple, Jews were going outside to look at the moon during the week when it grew from a new moon to a half moon, and reciting a blessing. The Talmud says that blessing the new month at the proper time is like greeting the face of the divine presence (Shekhinah), so one should say the blessing while standing. The full blessing, according to the Talmud, is:

Blessed are you God, our God, king of the universe, who by his word created the heavens, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts. He set for them a law and a time, that they should not deviate from their task. And they are joyous and glad to perform the will of their owner; they are workers of truth whose work is truth. And to the moon he said that it should renew itself as a crown of beauty for those he carried from the womb, as they are destined to be renewed like it, and to praise their Creator for the name of his glorious kingdom. Blessed are you, God, who renews the months. ((Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 42a)⁵

This formal prayer (in Aramaic) praises God for the creation of an orderly universe including the moon, the monthly renewal of moonlight, and an undefined renewal of human beings. The focus is on the heavenly bodies, personified.

New moon in the synagogue

For centuries, Jewish congregations were led outside once a month to look at the moon and recite the blessing above. This communal blessing happened right after the havadalah ceremony concluded the Shabbat that fell during those seven days.

But as more and more Jews went home after morning Shabbat services instead of staying with their rabbi all day through havdalah, a new custom arose to observe the new moon.

Now the morning Shabbat services before each new moon include an extra section of prayer and blessing in the Torah service. First the congregation chants the following prayer (in Hebrew):

May it be your will God, our God and God of our forefathers, shetechadeish for us this chodesh for goodness and for blessing. And may it give to us a long life, a life of peace, a life of goodness, a life of blessing, a life of right livelihood, a life of bodily health, a life full of awe of heaven and fear of wrongdoing, a life without shame or disgrace, a life of wealth and honor, a life of love of Torah and awe of heaven, a life of fulfillment by God of all desires of our heart for the good. Amen, selah!

shetechadeish (שֶׁתְּחַדֵּשׁ) = to renew. (A form of the verb chadash in “Prayerbook Hebrew”.)

The focus here is on blessings for humans. In a traditional Jewish prayerbook, prayers that ask God for blessings tend to be thorough.

Next the service leader holds the Torah scroll and announces which day the new moon will appear in the coming week, saying a shorter prayer before and after the announcement.⁶

If the new moon is scheduled to appear at the end of Shabbat, the traditional service adds a reading of the scene between David and Jonathan mentioned above.⁷

New moon in women’s circles

A more recent practice is for a circle of Jewish women to gather on the evening of the new moon, the first day of each Hebrew month, to conduct their own rituals. These have not been codified, but rosh chodesh (“beginning of a month”) groups are increasingly popular in America.

Celebrating the new moon follows the same trajectory as many other Jewish observances in history. In the Torah, the new moon is an occasion for a special offering at the altar, presided over by priests. After temple worship was replaced by communal prayers, rabbis developed different ways of celebrating the new moon, starting with a concrete act (saying a blessing outside while looking at the moon) and changing to a more abstract prayer in the synagogue. Finally, in the last half-century, liberal Jews have been developing their own innovative celebrations.

But is it still worthwhile to devote time and energy to thanking God for each new moon?

The gravity of the moon still creates the tides in our world. The changing moon still strikes many human beings as beautiful and awe-inspiring. Thanking God for the moon helps us to remember that like everything else in nature, it is a gift; we did not make it.

And in Hebrew the new moon, chodesh, also signals renewal, chadash. Something new is possible for all human beings, every month and every minute, from birth to death. We are never as stuck as we think.

—

See my post Vayikra & Tzav: Fire Offerings Without Slaughter, Part 1.
See my post Emor: Libations.
Here chataat (חַטָּאת) means an offering to remove guilt for a misdeed.
Samaritans, descendants of the Israelites in the northern kingdom of Samaria, still sacrifice sheep on Mount Gezirim for Passover.
sefaria.org , translation from Aramaic by William Davidson.
After that, the congregation anywhere outside of Israel recites another blessing.
1 Samuel 20:18-42.

Haftarat Vayeira–2 Kings: Dance of Pride

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week’s Torah portion is Vayeira (Genesis 18:1-22:21), and the haftarah is 2 Kings 4:1-37.

Elisha is not only a prophet, but a miracle-worker. He and his mentor, Elijah, are the only characters in the Hebrew Bible who create supernatural wonders on their own initiative—yet with God’s approval.

This week’s haftarah relates two of Elisha’s miracles. First the widow of one of Elisha’s disciples begs him for help. She is in debt to a creditor who is coming to take her two sons as slaves. Elisha speaks to her simply and directly, saying:

What can I do for you? Tell me what you have in the house. (2 Kings 4:2)

He has no problem arranging a miracle for the poor and desperate woman, turning her single small jar of oil into so much oil that when she sells it she can pay off her whole debt, with money left over. Magnanimity comes easily to Elisha.

In the next story, the woman who approaches Elisha is wealthy and content. Instead of asking for help, she is determined to help Elisha. He becomes the recipient of someone’s magnanimity.

It happened one day [that] Elisha passed by Shuneim, and there was a gedolah woman, vatachazek him to eat a meal. Then it happened whenever he passed by, he turned aside there to eat a meal. And she said to her husband: “Hey, please! I know that the one who passes by regularly is a holy man of God. Let us make, please, an upper room with a wall, and let us put there a bed for him, and a table and a chair and a lampstand, and it will happen whenever he comes to us, he will turn aside there”. And it happened one day [that] he came there and he turned aside to the upper room …(2 Kings 4:8-11)

gedolah (גְדוֹלָה) = great, important, big.

vatachazek (וַתַּחֲזֶק) = and she took hold of, and she prevailed over, and she seized.

The woman of Shuneim is probably gedolah, important in her town, because she and her husband are wealthy enough to build a walled chamber on top of their roof as a guest room. She may also be called gedolah because she is unusually forceful for a woman in the ancient kingdom of Judah. She does not politely ask Elisha if he would like to come to her house for a meal; she makes him do it, either by refusing to take no for an answer or by actually grabbing him.

But feeding Elisha is not enough for her. So she politely tells her husband she wants to build and furnish a guest room for him. Her husband’s reply is not recorded, but judging by the rest of the story, he never stands in her way. In the next sentence, Elisha’s guest room is complete.

What is the woman of Shuneim’s motivation for this extreme hospitality? One clue is that she calls Elisha a “man of god”, an ish elohim. Maybe she is religious, and sees taking care of a man of God as a way to contribute to the cause of glorifying the God of Israel.

And it happened one day [that] he came there and he turned aside to the upper room, and he lay down there. And he said to Geichazi, his manservant: “Call that woman of Shuneim.” And he called her, and she stood before him. (2 Kings 4:11-12)

Elisha is already famous in the kingdoms of both Judah and Israel. Now he has his own servant. He sends Geichazi to summon her, instead of going downstairs himself. He does not refer to his hostess by name (and we never learn it). When she climbs up the ladder to his room, he is reclining on the bed as if he were a king.

Putting on even more airs, Elisha does not speak to her directly, but only through his servant.

And he [Elisha] said to him: “Say, please, to her: Hey! You have troubled yourself with all this trouble for us. What is there to do for you? To speak for you to the king? Or to the commander of the army?” (2 Kings 4:13)

There is no indication that the woman needs anything from the king or the army commander. I believe Elisha is showing off, letting her know that he has influence with these exalted persons.

The woman is unimpressed. She merely replies:

I am dwelling among my own people. (2 Kings 4:13)

She does not need Elisha’s influence because she is already well-known and respected in Shuneim. She then goes back downstairs, making it clear that she does not want any favors from the “man of God”.

And he [Elisha] said: “Then what to do for her?” And Geichazi said: “Actually, she has no son, and her husband is old.” Then he [Elisha] said: “Call her”. And he called her, and she stood in the doorway. (2 Kings 4:14-15)

Geichazi assumes that the woman’s husband is too old to have successful intercourse with her. This story is a good match for the Torah portion Vayeira because in Vayeira, Sarah stands in the doorway of the tent and laughs silently when she hears a guest tell her 99-year-old husband, Abraham, that the following year she will have a son.

The guest, who is actually divine, hears Sarah’s thoughts and tells Abraham:

Is anything too extraordinary for God? Lamo-eid hazeh I will return to you, ka-eit chayyah, and Sarah will have a son. (Genesis 18:14)

lamo-eid hazeh (לַמּוֹעֵד הַזֶּה) = at this appointed time.

ka-eit chayyah (כָּעֵת חַיָּה) = in the same season of life. (An idiom for “at the same time next year”.)

Elisha borrows language from the Torah portion to announce his own miracle, and finally addresses the woman instead of confining his remarks to his servant.

And he said: “Lamo-eid hazeh, ka-eit chayyah, you will be embracing a son.” Then she said: “No, my lord, Man of the God. Don’t you lie to your maidservant.” (2 Kings 4:16)

Through the language of this annunciation, Elisha is comparing himself with Abraham’s guest, an angel who turns into the voice of God. I suspect that the woman of Shuneim rejects his message because she knows Elisha is only a man of God, not an angel. She puts him in his place.

She may not even want a son. Most women in Biblical times needed a son to support them in old age, since they rarely had property of their own. But as commentator Tikva Frymer Kensky pointed out, the woman of Shuneim appears to be independent, and may even own the land her husband farms for her.

Nevertheless, she has a son the following year. When the boy is old enough to follow his father around outside, but still young enough to fit on his mother’s lap, he suddenly has a pain in his head. His father does not take it seriously, and merely tells a servant to carry him back to his mother.

And he sat on her knees until noon. Then he died. And she took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and she closed [the door] behind him, and she left. (2 Kings 4:20-21)

Elisha and the Shunamite Woman (artist unknown)

The woman realizes that now she does need a favor from Elisha, and she has a right to demand it. When she reaches him on Mount Carmel, she brushes off Elisha’s servant Geichazi.

And she came up to the man of God on the mountain, vatachazek his feet… (2 Kings 4:27)

Once again the woman seizes Elisha, but this time instead of making him accept a favor from her, she requests one from him.

Geichazi tries to pull her away, but Elisha tells his servant:

“Leave her alone, because her soul is bitter, and God has hidden it from me and has not told me [about it].”

Then she said: “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say: Don’t you be careless with me?” (2 Kings 4:27-28)

Elisha's Servant Geichazi, engraving by Bernhard Rode — Elisha’s Servant Geichazi, by Bernhard Rode

That is enough of a clue for Elisha. He realizes her son has died, and he gives his staff to Geichazi with orders to place it on the boy’s face. But the woman knows that will not work. She insists on taking Elisha to her house in person. He still does not speak to her directly, but he follows her. When they arrive, the boy is still laid out dead on Elisha’s bed.

Elisha’s pride has taken two blows; first God did not tell him anything was wrong, and then his idea for a miraculous revivification did not work. His benefactress knew more than he did.

Elisha Raising the Son of the Shunemmite, by Frederic Leighton

All he can do now is imitate one of his mentor Elijah’s successful miracles, and hope it works for him, too. He goes into the guest room, shuts the door on Geichazi and the woman, and prays to God. Then he climbs up and lies down on the boy, mouth to mouth and hands to hands. (Too much time has elapsed for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; Elisha is attempting to send some of his own life-spirit into the child.)

After he does this a second time, the boy sneezes and opens his eyes. Elisha calls Geichazi and says: “Call that woman of Shuneim.” It sounds as if Elisha is resuming his proud distance from his benefactress. But when she arrives, he speaks to her, saying: “Pick up your son.” (2 Kings 4:36)

And she came and she fell at his feet and she bowed low to the ground and she picked up her son and she left. (2 Kings 4:37)

Although she bows to him, it is only his due as a man of God who has brought a dead child to life. She retains her dignity by rising and carrying her son away.

Does Elisha give up some of his prickly pride about receiving help from the woman of Shuneim? The story ends here, but later the second book of Kings reports:

And Elisha spoke to the woman whose son he had revived, saying: “Get up and go, you and your household, and sojourn wherever you will sojourn, because God has called for a seven-year famine, and even now it comes to the land.” And the woman got up and did as the man of God spoke… (2 Kings 8:1-2)

God is speaking to Elisha, and Elisha is speaking to the woman of Shuneim, treating her with consideration, even if she did once force him to accept favors from her.

Maybe I see this haftarah as a story of prickly male pride because I was born in the 1950’s and I’ve seen that dynamic again and again—though less often in this 21^st century. On the other hand, I sometimes find it difficult to accept help myself, because I, too, want to appear competent and in control, not weak and needy.

This week’s haftarah demonstrates that there are times when even the great woman of Shuneim, or Elisha the man of God, needs help. In order for we humans to do our work best, we need three things: the strength to ask for help when we need it, the strength to accept help whether we need it or not, and the compassion to give help when we can.

Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: A Response to Rejection

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Metzora (Leviticus 14:1-15:33) and the haftarah is 2 Kings 7:3-20.

Even when people belong to the same religious, ethnic, or national group, they can become marginalized or ostracized in their society. The book of Leviticus/Vayikra insists that anyone who develops a skin disease called tzara-at must be excluded from public worship and live apart from other people. Last week’s Torah portion (Tazria) declares:

All the days that the affliction is in him, he shall be ritually impure. Ritually impure, he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp. (Leviticus/Vayikra 13:46)

This skin disease is not always a permanent disfigurement; in fact, in last week’s haftarah, the Aramaean general Na-aman is cured of tzara-at. (See my post 2 Kings: A Religious Conversion.) This week’s Torah portion (Metzora) opens with the ritual for readmitting someone whose tzara-at has healed. But in this week’s haftarah, four men with tzara-at seem to be permanently shut out of their own city, with no way to make a living other than to beg at the city gate.

An army from Aram is besieging Samaria (Shomron in Hebrew), the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. (Na-aman, the Aramaean general in last week’s haftarah, is not mentioned; perhaps he is deployed elsewhere.) Inside the walls of the city, people are dying of starvation. Outside the city gate are four Israelites with tzara-at. Their skin disease is obvious, and the soldiers of Aram also ignore them, since they are only wretched beggars—with no one left to beg from.

And there were four men, metzora-im, at the entrance of the gate. And they said, each man to his rei-a: Why are we sitting here until we die? (2 Kings 7:3)

metzora-im (מְצֹרָעִים) = people with tzara-at (צָרַעַת), a non-communicable disease characterized by patches of white skin.

rei-a (רֵעַּ) = comrade, companion, friend.

Although shunned by the Israelites inside the walls of the town, the four outcasts are companions and friends with each other. They consider their situation:

If we say “Let us enter the city” and starvation is in the city, we shall die there; but if we stay here, we shall die. So now let us go to the camp of Aram and defect. If they let us live, we shall live, and if they put us to death, then we shall die. (2 Kings 7:4)

An extreme patriot might criticize the four men for deciding to defect (literally, “throw themselves down”) to their country’s enemy. Yet Israel has not taken care of them, and their best hope of staying alive is to take a chance on begging for food from the Aramaean army.

An Empty Camp

So they got up at twilight to come to the camp of Aram, and they came up to the edge of the camp of Aram, and hey!—nobody was there! God had made the camp of Aram hear the sound of chariots, the sound of horses, the sound of a great army; and each man had said to his brother: Hey! The king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us! And they had got up and fled at twilight, and they had abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys, [leaving them] in the camp just as it was. And they had fled for their lives. (2 Kings 7:5-7)

At twilight, while the four metzora-im were getting up to sneak away from the city, the soldiers of Aram were getting up to run away from their camp, terrified by divine auditory hallucinations.

Metzora-im at an enemy tent — Metzora-im enter an enemy tent

And those metzora-im came up to the edge of the camp, and they entered one tent and they ate and they drank, and they carried off from there silver and gold and clothing and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent, and they carried off [things] from there and hid them. And then they came back. (2 Kings 7:8)

At first the metzora-im think their problems are over. So what if their own country ostracizes them? In the deserted camp of the Aramaeans they have plenty of food and drink, as well as valuables they can sell later to make a living.

Then they said, each man to his rei-a: We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent, delaying until the light of morning. And we will be found guilty for our offense. So let us go now, and come and tell the household of the king. (2 Kings 7:9)

Their offense is withholding the news from the Israelites shut up in the capital. Even delaying overnight would result in punishment. If they delayed for days, more of their fellow Israelites would starve to death, oblivious of God’s miracle.

Why tell the king?

Commentators differ on whether the four outcasts are motivated by ethics, by utility, or by fear. According to Rashi (11^th-century Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki), we will be found guilty means “We will be held guilty by the throne”. They assume the king of Israel will eventually catch them, and they are afraid of the ensuing punishment.

Other commentary claims the decision of the four metzora-im is practical. Only if the city of Samaria functions again can they resume begging from travelers going in and out of the city gate. If they tell the good news at once to the king’s officials, they can count on the continued support of Israelite travelers. If they withhold the information and Samaria finds out later that the Aramaean army is gone, the Israelites will have a grudge against them. And if they load up Aramaean donkeys with Aramaean goods and try to make a new life elsewhere, they will still be discriminated against because of their skin disease (and perhaps also because of their country of origin). Telling the king of Samaria at once and returning to their old lives as beggars at the gate is their most practical option. (And who knows, maybe later they will have a chance to trade the silver and gold they hid.)

Another viewpoint is that the metzora-im make an ethical decision. It would be wrong to let their fellow Israelites starve, when they now have the means to feed them. So what if their own people ostracized them, and will continue to do so? They can still do the right thing.

These four men are such good friends, so good at talking things through with each other, that I think they considered fear, utility, and ethics when they made their decision. I admire their realism in accepting that as long as their skin disease lasts, they will be ostracized, so the best life they can hope for is as beggars at the gate. (I also wish they would take a chance like Na-aman in last week’s haftarah, and dare to ask the prophet Elisha for a cure.)

I also admire them for catching themselves in the midst of looting the abandoned Aramaean camp, and considering the plight of the people inside the city. What I admire most is that they do not enjoy the fact that now they are full and the people who kicked them out are starving. Instead they decide to share the wealth with the very people who refused to share with them—the clear-skinned city dwellers who followed the Levitical law of exclusion with no remediating measures.

None of us lead charmed lives; we are all ostracized or discriminated against at some point. But every person who resists a chance to discriminate against a former or potential enemy makes the world better.

May we all be blessed with the practicality and the ethical determination of the four metzora-im!

Haftarat Tazria—2 Kings: A Religious Conversion

Every week of the year has its own Torah portion (a reading from the first five books of the Bible) and its own haftarah (an accompanying reading from the books of the prophets). This week the Torah portion is Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59) and the haftarah is 2 Kings 4:42-5:19.

What inspires someone to convert to a religion?

For Na-aman, an Aramaean general from Damascus who converts to the religion of Israel in this week’s haftarah, the quick answer is that he decides to convert after an Israelite prophet heals him. But the full story runs deeper.

Na-aman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man [who stood] before his lord with a high rank, because God had given victory to Aram, and the man was a powerful warrior—[and] a man with skin disease. (2 Kings 5:1)

His skin disease is tzara-at , which is a serious ritual impurity in this week’s Torah portion, Tazria; someone who has it must live outside the camp, wear torn clothes, and cover his upper lip—even though the disease is not contagious. The rules in Aram may have been more lenient, but we can assume the disfiguring disease carried some social stigma.

And a raiding party of Aram had gone out and captured from the land of Israel a young na-arah, and she [stood] before the wife of Na-aman. And she said to her lady: If only my lord [stood] before the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would remove his skin disease. (2 Kings 5:2-3)

na-arah (נַעֲרָה) = slave-woman; any girl or young woman during the stage after puberty but before her first pregnancy.

The slave-girl is the one who knows what Na-aman needs to do to get rid of his disfiguring skin disease, a source of social stigma in the ancient Near East. She tells her mistress, who tells her husband, who then tells his master, the king of Aram.

And he came and told his lord, saying: This and this she said, the na-arah who is from the land of Israel. (2 Kings 5:4)

The king of Aram writes a letter for Na-aman to take to the king of Israel, perhaps to guarantee his safe passage through a foreign country. Eventually Na-aman and his servants arrive at the house of the prophet Elisha.

So Na-aman came with his horses and his chariots, and he stood at the door of the house of Elisha. Then Elisha sent a messenger out to him, to say to him: You must bathe seven times in the Jordan, and it will make your flesh restored and ritually-pure. But Na-aman became angry, and he walked away, and he said: Hey, I said to myself that he would surely go out and stand and invoke the name of God, his god, and wave his hand toward the place, and that would exterminate the skin disease. Aren’t the Amnah and the Parpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Wouldn’t I become pure if I bathed in them? Then he turned around and walked away hotly. (2 Kings 5:9-12)

Na-aman can respect a miracle-working prophet. But he expects the prophet to grant him the dignity of a personal cure, not a message by proxy. He also disdains the message because he believes his own country of Aram is superior to Israel. (See my post Tazria & 2 Kings; A Sign of Arrogance.)

On the other hand, he is willing to listen to advice from servants, including the Israelite girl who told him about Elisha in the first place. This time the grown men traveling with Na-aman as servants advise him.

The Cleansing of Naaman, woodcut from Biblia Sacra Germanaica — The Cleansing of Naaman,
woodcut from Biblia Sacra Germanaica

But his servants came near and spoke to him, and they said: My father, if the prophet spoke to you about doing a great deed, isn’t it true that you would do it? Then how much more so when he said to you: Bathe and be pure. So he went down and he dipped in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had spoken. And his flesh was restored, like the flesh of a na-ar, and he was ritually-pure. Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his troop, and he came and stood before him. He said: Here, please, I know that there are no gods on all the earth except in Israel. (2 Kings 5:13-15)

na-ar (נַעַר) = male slave; any boy or unmarried young man. (The male equivalent of na-arah.)

The Talmud considers Na-aman’s statement a declaration of religious conversion. Before Na-aman makes this declaration, he is compared to a boy or a slave, put on the same footing as his Israelite na-arah. Only from that position can he actually meet the prophet and “stand before” him, as earlier in the story subordinates stood before their masters. And only now does Na-aman know that the god of Israel is the only god on earth.

What gives him this knowledge or belief? I think it is not just the miraculous healing he experiences, but the fact that he receives healing only by setting aside his identity as an important Aramaean general and becoming an obedient “boy”.

And Na-aman said: Will it not be given, please, to your servant, enough soil to burden a pair of mules?—because your servant will never again make a rising-offering or an animal sacrifice to other gods, only to God. (2 Kings 5:17)

The only way Na-aman knows how to worship a god is to make offerings in the land of that god. Since he must return to Damascus to serve his king, he asks permission to take some of the dirt of Israel back with him. Elisha says Go in peace.

My own conversion to Judaism 30 years ago was mostly—but not entirely—different from Na-aman’s conversion. I was brought up as an atheist, but during my twenties I felt restless and dissatisfied. As a philosophy major in college, I had reasoned my way to the conclusion that the standard definition of God was contradictory and therefore described an impossibility. Yet every once in a while I was surprised by a flash of intuition that the universe was one and alive. It was a sudden gut feeling, not a rational idea. I felt an increasing need for something like religion, for some other connection with the ineffable. Thus my longing for a religion came not from my head, but from my guts.

In western religions and culture, the body is often considered inferior to the mind. We assume that the mind makes a decision and the body carries it out, like a servant or a beast of labor.

But sometimes the body speaks first. The great general Na-aman’s own body develops a skin disease. Then the least of his servants, the captive Israelite girl, tells him who to go to for a cure. And he follows her advice.

When he arrives in the foreign land of Israel, he is instructed first by the prophet’s servant, then by his own servants. If he had not obeyed them and bathed in the Jordan, Na-aman would have gone home unhealed and unconverted.

If I had not listened to my gut feelings, even though I viewed them as inferior to my rational mind, I would have remained a dissatisfied atheist with a dry life. Instead I began reading about various religions and their attitudes toward life in this world. And I fell in love with Judaism, which seemed to share my irrational, gut conviction that nothing is more important than doing the right thing, regardless of any possible future reward.

It was a good match. I converted 30 years ago, and I am still a passionate Jew.

Part of my conversion was to immerse myself underwater in a mikveh—rather like Na-aman’s seven immersions in the Jordan River. Then I affirmed my inner knowledge that all divinity is one by reading the Shema out loud before three witnesses. This was not so different from Na-aman telling Elisha: Here, please, I know that there are no gods on all the earth except in Israel.

I was not brought up to slaughter and burn animals for God, thank God. But perhaps whenever I pray with other Jews, I am symbolically worshiping God on the soil of our religion. And even as my mind occupies itself with translating the Hebrew prayers into meanings I can accept, my body-servant, my heart and gut, rise in exaltation.

Haftarat Metzora—2 Kings: Insiders and Outsiders

Last week’s haftarah (the reading from the Prophets that accompanies the week’s Torah portion) tells the story of Na-aman, an Aramean general whose skin disease, tzara-at, disappears when he gives up his arrogance to follow the advice of the prophet Elisha. (See my post Tazria & 2 Kings: A Sign of Arrogance.)

Although Aram and Israel are at peace when Na-aman comes to Elisha for a cure, hostilities resume later in the second book of Kings. Eventually an Aramean army besieges Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. Trapped inside the city walls, the Israelites begin to run out of food. The price of food skyrockets, and two women eat a child.

Meanwhile, four men with tzara-at are living in exile outside the city walls. The Torah says that tzara-at, unlike all other skin diseases, is an affliction caused by the touch of God. The afflicted must live alone, outside the camp or town, until God removes the disease and a priest declares them ritually pure.

God may also afflict houses with tzara-at, according to this week’s Torah portion, Metzora (“Someone with tzara-at”). No one may live in a house with tzara-at in the walls.

Why does God touch people and houses with tzara-at? The book of Leviticus/Vayikra does not say, but in the Babylonian Talmud (Arachin 16a), the rabbis say tzara-at is caused by slander, and then list six other causes: bloodshed, swearing falsely, incest, arrogance, robbery, and envy. All of these bad deeds or bad attitudes not only sin against God, but also poison one’s relationships with other people. No wonder the Torah requires a metzora to stay away from the community.

In this week’s haftarah, the four men with tzara-at who live just outside the besieged city of Samaria are also starving. They come to the city gate, but they receive neither food nor a check-up from a priest to see whether they have healed and can come back inside. The haftarah picks up the story as they consider their options.

Four men were metzora-im at the entrance of the gate, and each one said to his neighbor: Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say “Let’s come into the city”, and the famine is in the city, then we will die there. But if we sit here, then we will die. So now, let’s go and surrender ourselves to the camp of Aram. If they let us live, we live; and if they put us to death, then we die. (2 Kings 7:3-4)

metzora-im (מְצֹרָעִים) = the plural of metzora (מְצֹרָע) = someone afflicted with tzara-at.

In other words, the four men decide to defect to the Arameans on the chance that they will survive. Although most commentary criticizes the metzora-im for their disloyalty to Israel, I think they are far more ethical and less disloyal than the two Samarian women inside the city who resort to cannibalism. After all, the men do not even consider killing any Israelites in order to eat them.

So they got up in the twilight to come to the Aramaean camp. They came up to the edge of the Aramaean camp, and hey! Nobody was there! (2 Kings 7:5)

God had made the Aramean soldiers hear the sounds of an approaching army, complete with chariots and horses. Assuming that the king of Israel had hired mercenary forces, the Arameans had fled for their lives, leaving behind their horses, donkeys, and tents.

The four would-be defectors enter a tent, eat and drink their fill, then take the silver, gold, and clothing and hide it. After they have looted a second tent, it occurs to all four of them that they could rescue the starving Israelites in the city.

Then they said, each one to his neighbor: We are not doing right. Today is a day of good news, and we are delaying it. If we delay until the light of morning, we will be found guilty. So now, let’s go, and we will come to the house of the king and tell it. (2 Kings 7:9)

The men have two motivations for reporting that the enemy has fled: because it is the right thing to do, and because they do not want to be found guilty if they delay until someone on the city wall can see that the Aramean camp is deserted.

The gatekeepers of the city do not let in the metzora-im. Nevertheless, they shout out the good news, and the gatekeepers pass it on to the king’s house inside. Then the city of Samaria empties as everyone rushes through the gate to loot the deserted Aramean camp.

There is no indication of what the four men did that led God to punish them with tzara-at in the first place. By the time they appear in the haftarah, they seem fairly decent; they do not consider either using violence against anyone to get food, or taking revenge against the city that excluded them. Nor do they exhibit any of the seven causes of tzara-at listed in the Talmud, unless their looting of abandoned Aramean tents counts as robbery, a word used to mean taking forcible possession.

But what about the cannibalism that occurs inside the city just before the haftarah begins? One Samarian woman complains to the king of Israel:

That woman said to me: Give your son and we will eat him today; and my son we will eat tomorrow. And we cooked my son and we ate him. Then I said to her the next day: Give your son and we will eat him. But she hid her son! (2 Kings 6:28-29)

These two women commit five of the seven anti-social deeds on the list:

Slander: The actual idiom in the Talmud is lashon hara = the evil tongue. The woman who complains to the king is guilty of lashon hara because she points out the other woman and defames her.

Bloodshed: Obviously both women are guilty of murder.

Swearing falsely: The first woman complains that the second woman made a false vow when she promised they would eat her son the next day.

Incest: The actual idiom in the Talmud is “exposing the nakedness”. Although incest does not technically occur in the story, the first woman does expose her son’s vulnerability and violate his body.

Arrogance: Both women assume their lives are more valuable than the child’s life.

I would argue that the women inside the city deserve tzara-at more than the men outside the walls. When everyone rushes out of the city to loot the Aramean camp, it is echoes the requirement in the Torah portion Metzora that a house with tzara-at must be emptied and abandoned until its walls become pure again.

I know that I, like most human beings, feel as if some people are too awful to tolerate, and I want to exclude them from my community or my in-group—at least until they show signs of overcoming their anti-social traits. No doubt sometimes my diagnosis is correct. But I must remember that sometimes my in-group might be more at fault than the person I want to exclude. The affliction might be inside my own walls.

May we all keep the gates of our souls open to new developments, and close our gates only when we really are besieged.