{"id":63190,"date":"2019-09-19T11:52:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T08:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=63190"},"modified":"2023-04-14T14:19:23","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T11:19:23","slug":"elishas-bad-hair-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/elishas-bad-hair-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Elisha\u2019s Bad Hair Day"},"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":[931,506],"acf":{"old_id":"63190","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":59587,"related_cahpter":"311","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"He would probably be just as irritable if he lived today. We sure are.","content":"

Kids can be mean. The curse Elisha lays on his tormentors therefore delights. Infanticide by she-bears is no laughing matter but it is nice to know that at least once in the history of bullying \u201cBoys will be boys\u201d received a comeuppance. When it comes to \u201cGo on, baldie,\u201d it\u2019s easy to substitute similar taunts from playground memories. And to avoid pretending we\u2019re talking about mature responses to ridicule I\u2019ll admit my satisfaction when a high school reunion showed a number of my worst wishes for mean boys had come true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I may be under-accomplished financially and generally miserable over climate change, but for the time being I\u2019m not fat, bald, or brainwashed by the idolatrous myth that civilization is a winner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elisha is a creative in a world of warmongers. He purifies water with a dash of salt, raises a Shunamite\u2019s son, multiplies a widow\u2019s oil, and makes an amazing gourd stew. The catastrophe of kingship rages as Israel\u2019s leaders continue to kowtow to Baal and God\u2019s own people ravage landscapes and turn rivers to blood. Meanwhile influencers are freaking out about Elijah\u2019s imminent departure in a flurry of fear that Elisha finds tedious.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elisha\u2019s problem is other people. Even his own master tests his patience. Three times Elijah has to be told no, Elisha will not stay behind; he\u2019s with him till the end. Unconvinced by the news of Elijah\u2019s ascent by flaming horses, the sons of prophets in Jericho intimidate Elisha into letting them send mighty men to search for him. When they return empty-handed after three days, Elisha tells them he told them so.<\/span><\/p>\n

His irritability mirrors my own. Baal-zebub is everywhere\u2014from the manipulation of land and people by spuriously elected presidents and corporate-funded members of Congress to subway cars full of commuters fetishizing their iPhones. A pox on the illusion of prosperity manufactured by human hands! The idols of culture, consumerism, and ideology beam into to households via flatscreens. We click on the Oscars and red carpet thumbnails like they\u2019re lines of coke. My downstairs neighbor receives ten packages from Amazon in four days. I\u2019m offered meditation for as low as two hundred dollars per month so that I can learn to control my mind, breath in acceptance of self and out in acceptance of others, and never have an emotional reaction to anything ever again. It\u2019s petulant, but I bedamn these things every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mauling of the forty-two brats is overkill, although it\u2019s not one hundred percent clear that this is the fulfilment of Elisha\u2019s malediction. Hebrew\u2019s <\/span>vav<\/span><\/i>-consecutive doesn\u2019t strictly encode cause and effect. Rather, that he cursed them \u201cand then along came some bears\u201d comically implies it could have been incidental. If one was the result of the other, it\u2019s no wonder Elisha high-tailed it to Mount Carmel. Greater wrath is on the way, and however jejune his curse and absurd its consequences might seem, the text provides relief by reminding me that the results of my revenge fantasies are beyond my control.<\/span><\/p>\n

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