{"id":59159,"date":"2019-07-09T15:48:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T12:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=59159"},"modified":"2023-01-31T14:46:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T12:46:54","slug":"creepy-spirit-raising-necromancer-jewish-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/creepy-spirit-raising-necromancer-jewish-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Creepy Spirit-Raising Necromancer = Jewish Mother!?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[418,415,881,718,604,885],"acf":{"old_id":"59159","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36277,"related_cahpter":"260","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Though she raises the dead by profession, she is a hospitable daughter of Abraham","content":"

Of all the textual parallels between the stories of Saul and David and the book of Genesis, the one at the end of today\u2019s chapter is both the most blatantly deliberate and also perhaps the most perplexing.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this terrible scene, a wretched and desperate King Saul, abandoned by God and facing defeat by the Philistines, illegally seeks out a witch at Endor to summon up the spirit of Saul\u2019s mentor, Samuel. The Witch of Endor conjures up a vision of Samuel who declares that God has indeed rejected Saul, whose life and reign are about to end, and that David will inherit the kingdom. Saul falls flat on the ground with shock. The witch begs Saul to let her feed him a good meal and Saul reluctantly agrees.<\/span><\/p>\n

That the creepy-seeming spirit-raising necromancer unexpectedly turns out to be a Jewish mother is weird enough. Stranger still is that the words the author uses to describe her preparing food for Saul echo precisely the description in Genesis 18 of Abraham bringing food to the angels. As the <\/span>Da\u2019at Mikra<\/span><\/i> commentary shows, the phrases \u201cLet me set before you a little food\u2026the woman had a stall-fed calf\u2026she hastily slaughtered it\u2026took flour and kneaded it\u2026and baked some cakes\u201d (v.22-4) all have striking parallels in the story of Abraham\u2019 open-hearted hospitality recounted in Genesis 18:3-8<\/span><\/p>\n

Why would the author of I Samuel wish to compare the Witch of Endor, who pursues pagan sorcery that is punishable by death to Abraham, the founder of monotheism?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My speculative answer is the following: in the nightmare of Saul\u2019s decline and his murderous, paranoid persecution of David, God\u2019s presence deserted Saul and was pressed to the margins of Israel. Saul can only hope to find divine connection and consolation through consorting illegally with witchcraft (which he himself had banned from the land.)<\/span><\/p>\n

When Samuel emphatically announces that Saul\u2019s time is over, the nightmare starts to lift. Just then, this woman who, only moments earlier, was illicitly summoning ghosts, is revealed as a good-hearted and generous daughter of Abraham. The ethical spirit of Israel, crushed and twisted by Saul\u2019s tyrannical rule begins to reawaken.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This direction also imagines a twist on the questions that have puzzled the commentators throughout the ages about this episode: was the Witch\u2019s sorcery real? Do we believe that there is any reality in forbidden witchcraft? Rambam believed not, whereas Ramban and others thought that there can be. Perhaps some say, the witch faked Samuel\u2019s appearance, or maybe the petrified Saul imagined the whole thing?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our line of thought here suggests that the woman\u2019s magic was neither fabrication nor hallucination but a misplaced search for godliness in a time and place where God had fallen silent. And so, as Saul\u2019s reign ends, the Witch of Endor\u2019s quest for divinity, which had been perverted into the forbidden seeking of spirits is now rechanneled into selfless acts of compassion and loving-kindness.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":59160,"id":59160,"title":"isam28-jewish mother","filename":"isam28-jewish-mother.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/isam28-jewish-mother.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/creepy-spirit-raising-necromancer-jewish-mother\/isam28-jewish-mother\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"isam28-jewish-mother","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":59159,"date":"2019-07-09 12:47:54","modified":"2022-02-19 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