STORY OF CHANNAH: 23. And Elkanah her husband said to
her: "Do what seems good to you. Stay until you have weaned him, only, may
the Lord fulfill His word." And the woman stayed and nursed her son, until
she weaned him.
QUALITY OF PIRKEI AVOT: and jurisprudence.
PROVERBS: Chapter 23
Week 23 is the week of Zayin
Adar, Moshe’s birthday as well as the date of his passing. The verse from
the story of Channah describes how Elkanah allows Channah to do what she
believed as right for Shmuel, which was to stay with him until he was weaned.
The verse has a curious line, on which Rashi
comments. Elkanah says to Chanah: “may the Lord fulfill His word.” To what
is Elkanah referring? Rashi explains
as follows:
RASHI - only, may the Lord fulfill
His word: Since you asked of Him
seed of righteous men (above v. 11), and Eli announced to you through divine
inspiration: (above v. 17) “The God of Israel will grant your request,” may the
Lord fulfill His word. This is according to the simple interpretation. The Midrash
Agadah, however, explains thus: Rabbi Nehemiah said in the name of Rabbi
Samuel, the son of Rabbi Isaac: Every day, a divine voice would resound
throughout the world, and say: A righteous man is destined to arise, and his
name will be Samuel. Thereupon, every woman who bore a son, would name him
Samuel. As soon as they saw his deeds, they would say, “This is not Samuel.”
When our Samuel was born, however, and people saw his deeds, they said, “It
seems that this one is the expected righteous man.” This is what Elkanah meant
when he said, ‘May the Lord fulfill His word,’ that this be the righteous
Samuel.
Elkanah is praying that Shmuel
indeed be righteous. According to Rabbi Nechemiah, Elkanah was praying that
this be in fact the “expected righteous man,” for which everyone was hoping.
There is a clear parallel here with Moshe Rabbeinu, the expected redeemer of
the Jewish people.
This week’s Pirkei
Avot quality is that the Torah grants jurisprudence, Chikur Din. Chikur
Din means to investigate a matter
in order to arrive at the right decision. In the above story, Elkanah essentially
tells Channah to make the decision, to “do what seems good to you.” This
quality also seems very much related to the Sefirah combination for this
week, Gevurah shebeNetzach (judgment in the context of endurance; see
Week 23, Book 1)
Chapter 23 of the Book of Proverbs
is very much about jurisprudence. It also continues the theme of the previous
week, rulership.
1. If you sit down to dine with a
ruler, you should understand well who is in front of you,
(...)
12. Bring your heart to discipline
and your ears to words of knowledge.
(...)
19. Hear you, my son, and grow
wise, and walk in the way of your heart.
As mentioned last week, this year there
are two months of Adar, and yahrzeits are usually commemorated on the second one, unless
the person passed away in the first Adar in a year that
also had two. We will therefore, leave the descriptions for the next month,
when we repeat weeks 22 through 25.
