{"id":62860,"date":"2019-09-13T14:52:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T11:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=62860"},"modified":"2023-04-09T12:38:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T09:38:05","slug":"introducing-the-sound-of-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/introducing-the-sound-of-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing: The Sound of Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/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":[858,581,437],"acf":{"old_id":"62860","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":42746,"related_cahpter":"306","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"We\u2019re about the complexities of life, not the absolutes","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the end of every Yom Kippur, we quote the people in their great cry on top on Mount Carmel. They just watched Elijah perform his greatest miracle\u00a0 &#8211; and one of the greatest of all time &#8211; and are all shouting, \u201cThe Lord is God, the Lord is God!\u201d (18:39). What grand faith! If we had written the Bible, we would have had Elijah becoming top prophet, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel profusely apologizing for any agony they caused him prior to this great show of power and truth, and the whole kingdom repenting wholeheartedly, abandoning Baal worship and living happily ever after.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Instead, chapter 19 opens with Ahab telling Jezebel what Elijah did. Such a great show and she did not know about it? She had to be told? And his story &#8211; it\u2019s not about crowning God, miracles, rain and blessings but focuses on him killing the Baal prophets \u201cfor no reason at all.\u201d She immediately sends a messenger to Elijah, letting him know that his destiny will be like that of the other prophets. Namely, she has not lost any power whatsoever, while his life is still in grave danger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interestingly, Elijah is heartbroken. He wanders south to Beer Sheba, sits under a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>rotem<\/em> <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(broom) tree, and \u201cprayed that he might die. \u2018Enough!\u2019 he cried. \u2018Now, O LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers\u2019 (19:4). Since we know already Elijah is an all or nothing kind of guy, it seems like he expected perfect success, with the idea of failing impossible to bear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But, it turns out, dying is not so simple. An angel wakes him up with food, twice, saying, \u201cArise and eat, for your journey is still long for you\u201d (19:7). Through the strength of this food, he \u201cwalked forty days and forty nights as far as the mountain of God at Horeb\u201d (19:8). Reminiscent of Moses and his journey, Elijah follows to the place he can meet God face to face.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the previous chapter is characterized by a very public show of noise and fire, this one is all about inward discoveries, privacy and silence: \u201cthe LORD was not in the wind\u2026 the LORD was not in the earthquake\u2026 the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire\u2014a soft murmuring sound of silence\u201d (19:11-12). Exactly where Moses learned God\u2019s thirteen attributes of mercy, Elijah is invited to relearn that Torah too. We\u2019re not about killing everybody who disagrees with us, says God in His own words.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elijah, we\u2019re sorry, we have a problem with zealots and you overdid it. You\u2019ll have to go and \u201canoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah to succeed you as prophet \u201c (19:16). The meaning of God\u2019s Oneness is that in every absolute wrong, there is at least a little bit right too. We\u2019re about the complexities of life, not the absolutes, because in this way, we can actually better hold that Oneness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image:\u00a0Elijah visited by an Angel, original gouache by\u00a0Alessandro Magnasco (1667-1749), reworking by Ben Schachter, courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":62861,"id":62861,"title":"1kings19-Schachter-ElijahVisitedByAngel","filename":"1kings19-Schachter-ElijahVisitedByAngel.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/1kings19-Schachter-ElijahVisitedByAngel.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/introducing-the-sound-of-silence\/1kings19-schachter-elijahvisitedbyangel\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"1kings19-schachter-elijahvisitedbyangel","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":62860,"date":"2019-09-13 11:48:53","modified":"2019-09-13 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