Parashat Tazria

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Elisha – A Private Person’s Prophet

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

The prophet Elisha cures General Na’aman’s leprosy in an “unconventional” manner. 

Leprosy pertains only in the Holy Land at a time when all of Israel are dwelling therein, and involved in the service of the Holy Temple.  Leprosy was designed to awaken and to shake up the private individual who had strayed from the path.  In this sense, the leper has a similar lot to the sota, whom the bitter waters tested only when Israel was at a level of sanctity and purity, “and the waters ceased to test when (male) adulterers began to increase.”

Leprosy comes as a response to slander and to arrogance – particularly leprosy of the head and of the beard (See Kli Yakar).  How does the private individual feel, during an enlightened era?  How does he presume to deviate from the norm of “the revealed Face [of God]” when it is so decisively cutting and so clearly directed – toward the sweeping majority as well as toward the private individual?

The temptation is avoda zara.  The individual risks forsaking his unique individuality and merging with the group to the point that his own uniqueness disappears.  Alternatively, he risks closing himself off inside his own uniqueness; this hazard just as the previous one, may ensnare him in the trap of avoda zara, idolatry.

Whether by canceling his own uniqueness, by submerging himself in the group, which causes him to lose his personal connection with his Creator, and to instead cancel himself in favor of the powers that rule over him and take control of him – which is the very essence of avoda zara (brute force): Here is no gracious and compassionate Father to all His Creants, Who relates to every single one of them as to His own only son.  “Is Ephraim a darling son to me?  A child of delight?”

Or whether by the other option, where the avoda zara of ego lies in wait – turning oneself into an image of worship, or attributing this image of worship to another individual – to a prophet, to a sorcerer, or to any trickster. 

Leprosy comes to help the individual guard himself against the danger of avoda zara, in that leprosy is an obvious miracle, given exclusively into the hands of the priest, specifically.  Even if he is a cohen shoteh, a “fool priest”. 

It is not in the hands of the scholars.  Only the cohen can make or break leprosy.  He determines what is pure and what is impure – by no rational or medical process whatsoever.  The form of this determining, decision-making process is designed to distance one from the option of attributing a natural power to leprosy, and thus leprosy itself is prevented from being perceived as an independent power, and the leper himself prevented from being turned into a martyr because a bizarre thing has happened to him.  It is worth remembering one of the absurdities of our own day – in which fools attribute supernatural powers to retarded people.

Leprosy is designed only and solely for the repair of the leper’s midot, and not for repair of the universe, yet it is active only in a universe of peak level sanctity.  It is worth remembering the affliction of leprosy that imposed itself on the father of all prophets, when “his hand became leprous as snow”: He had expressed doubt as to b’nei Yisrael’s ability to believe in the Creator.

Elisha was the prophet of the private individual, and more than any other prophet dealt with producing miracles designed to bring relief to the troubled individual.  The Scripture counts over twelve miracles attributed to Elisha. 

The cure of Na’aman’s leprosy had been directed toward a specific purpose:  Precisely because of the miracles that Elisha had worked at the individual level, he risked the hazard of avoda zara, which could have trapped him and his public, for the masses tend to mindlessly attribute Godly qualities to the wonder worker. 

The young girl whom Na’aman had captured from Israel was the connecting factor between Na’aman and Elisha.

Na’aman, who had brought troubles upon Israel, being the general of Aram, a king who dominated and tyrannized them; Na’aman who had killed Ahav and captured an innocent young girl, and had made her be his wife’s maid – and who had been stricken with leprosy, according to Hazal, for these two very reasons – related to the prophet as though he were the possessor of a higher power – a limited higher power perhaps – and this is precisely the avoda zara attitude: Attributing an independent higher power to a person or to a force of nature; a limited higher power perhaps, but a higher power nonetheless.

Na’aman searches for a way to bring pressure to bear on the prophet, by having the king command the prophet to cure him.  Here the belief in governmental rule as one of the many of the powers of avoda zara makes its appearance: The king rules the nation through a higher power.  (Though this belief obviously does not prevent wars being waged among the higher powers themselves.)

The king feels pressured; Elisha does not.  In total serenity, he recommends that Na’aman be referred to him.  Na’aman attempts to use another one of avoda zara’s powers – money.  Not only does Elisha remain unmoved, he does not even have the courtesy to receive Na’aman personally, but instead sends one of his servant boys with the suggestion that Na’aman go jump in the lake, i.e. immerse himself in the waters of the Yarden River – a river which even during the period of the prophets was considered an unimportant river. 

Na’aman is offended by this slighting attitude.  He had expected someone who possessed magical powers, and who would use his sorceries directly against his leprosy.

He obeys reluctantly, persuaded by his advisors, and behold, the miracle occurs!  He comprehends that intervention by a higher power has taken place here, but  he has difficulty turning this into avoda zara, for after all nothing had been done by any human or natural medium.

The use of a natural medium in a miraculous event runs the risk of misleading people into attributing higher power to a natural force – just as the use of any supernatural power can be misleading.  This is what Elisha wished to minimize, and even to eliminate.

Elisha created a unique, individuated line of hashgaha pratit, a private and personal Divine Providence that drew from the public hashgaga of giluy panim, but was directed toward the individual. 

He himself was a solitary prophet, under conditions of one-to-one, of one private individual to another, including protecting his own honor as a private individual, and therefore punishing the boys who persecuted him and taunted him for his baldness.