{"id":64424,"date":"2019-10-17T13:53:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T10:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=64424"},"modified":"2023-05-14T11:00:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T08:00:47","slug":"josiahs-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/josiahs-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Josiah\u2019s Dilemma"},"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":[418,301,942,410],"acf":{"old_id":"64424","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":62571,"related_cahpter":"331","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Just like Abraham, he had to do a major reassessment and re-evaluation of what he thought he knew to be true","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the course of renovating the Jerusalem Temple, a Torah scroll is discovered that had apparently been secreted many years before when Judea had descended into religious lawlessness and anarchy. Josiah, a righteous king by the bible\u2019s lights (v. 2), when this newly-found Torah was read to him, realized how the Jewish people had engaged in extensive alien spiritual practices (even if inadvertently), and set out to purge these various practices from his kingdom (23:4-24.)\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To suddenly be confronted with the reality that what you had thought were normative, Divinely-inspired practices and even obligations, in fact were anything but, must have come as quite a shock to the king. Hezekiah was horrified when told by Huldah, the leading prophetess of the time, that as a result of the people\u2019s perfidy, God\u2019s wrath would be kindled against them all (22:15-20).\u00a0 The text leads us to presume that Josiah himself was a well-meaning, responsible monarch, who seemingly could not forgive himself for not realizing that on his watch, idolatry had inveigled itself into the everyday affairs of Judea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Josiah\u2019s dilemma somewhat parallels the challenge that confronted the young Abraham, prior to God\u2019s revelation to him in Genesis 12. As Maimonides points out (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Avodah Zorah 1:3) \u201c\u2026 he (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Abraham<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) had no teacher, no one to inform him of anything, but rather was embedded in Ur of the Chaldeans amongst foolish idolaters, with his father and his mother and everyone engaging in star worship. He worshipped (<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">outwardly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) with them, but his heart quested and searched, until he comprehended the true path, and understood the way of righteousness based upon correct comprehension\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While Abraham may have been required to do more of the \u201cheavy lifting\u201d on his own, as opposed to Josiah, who became enlightened via the recorded words of a book of Torah law, in both instances, a major reassessment and reorientation were required on the parts of individuals in order to reject what they now deemed as \u201cfalse,\u201d and to both embrace and attempt to lead others to acknowledge the \u201ctruth.\u201d As God declares that Abraham was to \u201c\u2026walk before Me\u201d (Genesis 17:1) and thereby serve as God\u2019s representative amongst the idolaters of his generation, Josiah faced a similar daunting challenge once he became energized to bring about the call of the Torah.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>image:\u00a0 by Ben Schachter, courtesy of the artist<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":64432,"id":64432,"title":"2kings22-Schachter-Josiah","filename":"2kings22-Schachter-Josiah.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/2kings22-Schachter-Josiah.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/josiahs-dilemma\/2kings22-schachter-josiah\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"2kings22-schachter-josiah","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":64424,"date":"2019-10-17 10:53:41","modified":"2019-10-17 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