Haftaras Parashas Pinchas: How Eliyahu ha’Navi Lost His Job

I initially intended to write this week's dvar Torah blog post on the haftarah of Parashas Pinchas. Since Parashas Pinchas falls out after the 17th of Tammuz this year, the regular haftarah is replaced with the first chapter of Sefer Yirmiyahu. Unfortunately, I am writing this on a plane, and I only have access to meforshim on the regular haftarah of Parashas Pinchas. For this reason, I decided to write about that haftarah instead.

Artwork: Gideon, Champion of Justice
(This is what I imagine a young Eliyahu ha'Navi looked like)

Haftaras Parashas Pinchas: How Eliyahu ha’Navi Lost His Job

In the seventh perek of Shemoneh Perakim, the Rambam writes that ethical perfection (a.k.a. “perfection of middos”) is a prerequisite for nevuah. However, he notes that it is not necessary for the navi to have reached total perfection in all of his or her middos. The Rambam cites several examples of neviim who were still able to receive nevuah, in spite of their ethical imperfections: Shlomo ha’Melech still struggled with his taavah for women; David ha’Melech had problems with cruelty; both Shmuel ha’Navi and Yaakov Avinu were unduly afraid of those who posed a threat to them (i.e. Shaul and Eisav, respectively); and Eliyahu ha’Navi had issues with anger.
In this dvar Torah we will examine an instance of Eliyahu’s anger and its repercussions.
The Haftarah: According to Ralbag

In the perek which precedes our haftarah, Eliyahu manages to convince Bnei Yisrael that “Hashem – He is the God! Hashem – He is the God” (I Melachim 18:39) at the climax of his miraculous demonstration before the priests of Baal. Unfortunately, the success doesn’t last. Bnei Yisrael remain attached to avodah zarah, and regress to their old ways. Moreover, Achav and Eezevel – the evil king and queen of Israel – proceed with their plan to exterminate all neviim. Our haftarah begins with Eliyahu fleeing for his life.
Eliyahu retreats to the desert to minimize his chances of getting caught. After nearly starving to death and begging Hashem to take his life, he is saved by an angel of Hashem who provides him with food and lodging in the wilderness. The angel encourages Eliyahu to continue on his journey. Finally, after 40 days and 40 nights of traveling, Eliyahu arrives at Har Sinai, where he crawls into a cave and goes to sleep.
That night Eliyahu receives a prophetic dream. At the beginning of the dream he is asked, “Why are you here, Eliyahu?” (ibid. 19:9). Although this is clearly a rhetorical question – since Hashem is Omniscient, and knows why Eliyahu is here – it is still a peculiar question to ask, since it doesn’t seem as though Eliyahu initially planned to journey to Har Sinai. Eliyahu answers:

“I have acted with great zeal for Hashem, God of Legions, for the Children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant; they have razed Your altars and have killed Your prophets by the sword, so [that] I alone have remained, and they now seek to take my life” (ibid. 19:10).

According to the Ralbag, Eliyahu was angry at the sin of Israel. In his response to Hashem, Eliyahu was implicitly asking Him to exact vengeance from them. Hashem responds to this request in a cryptic manner:

[The word of God] then said, “Go out [of the cave] and stand on the mountain before Hashem.” And behold, Hashem was passing, and a great, powerful wind, smashing mountains and breaking rocks, went before Hashem. “Hashem is not in the wind!” [Eliyahu was told]. After the wind came an earthquake. “Hashem is not in the earthquake!” After the earthquake came a fire. “Hashem is not in the fire!” After the fire came a still, thin sound (ibid. 19:11-12).

The basic question is: What was the meaning of this prophetic vision? We know that all neviim (except Moshe Rabbeinu) received their prophecies in the form of images, which they must interpret as allegories. In some cases, the pesukim relate both the images and their meaning; in other cases, only the meaning is conveyed, and imagery is omitted; and in other cases – such as this one – only the images are recorded in the pesukim, and the meaning is left for us to decipher.

Ralbag proposes the following theory about the meaning of this vision, and its relationship to the events which preceded and followed it: 

It would seem that Hashem [showed Eliyahu this vision] to prompt him to ask for mercy on behalf of Israel – not to pray for them to be destroyed for their evil ways – for Hashem desires to delay His anger so that they will do teshuvah [and return] to Him. 

Accordingly, Hashem showed him destructive phenomena, such as “a great and powerful wind, smashing mountains and breaking rocks,” and told him that “Hashem is not in the wind” – for the derech of Hashem is to bring harm upon someone only as a means of bringing about good. Since it was clear to Hashem that Israel would not accept His rebuke, He didn’t want to punish them for their sins in the full measure that they deserved, but instead, He waited for them to see whether they would do teshuvah from their evil ways. 

“And after the wind came an earthquake,” which is more harmful than the wind, insofar as it is capable of overturning the earth. And it also mentioned, “Hashem is not in the earthquake!” as it mentioned about the wind. “And after the earthquake came a fire,” which is even more harmful. And it also mentioned, “Hashem is not in the fire!” for the same reason we mentioned. 

It is as though He was explaining through this that such harmful phenomena are not directly intended by Hashem, but rather, He concealed His countenance (i.e. He withdrew His hashgachah pratis) from Israel and abandoned them to the rain of the arrows [of chance] which were ready to befall them. The reason for this is that the [hashgachic] harms which are intended to deliver mussar (rebuke) would not benefit Israel [in this case] … 

But “After the fire came a still, thin sound” – in other words, a very low sound from Hashem, as if it were a composite of sound and silence. Through this [Hashem intended] to convey [the message] that since Israel fell into these evils, and did not sense that it was their own sins which caused them to be abandoned to the vicissitudes of chance, therefore, a special type of mussar would come from Hashem, but it would not be as complete as the manner in which Hashem brought mussar to Bnei Yisrael in the Wilderness during the days of Moshe, which they immediately perceived as [being brought about] on account of their sins; rather, this mussar would be like a composite of sound and silence. 

Such was the meaning of Hashem’s prophecy to Eliyahu. To summarize: Hashem sought to show him that Israel did not deserve the full measure of Hashem’s mussar – namely, the type of miraculous “fire and brimstone” hashgachic punishments which Eliyahu, in his anger, requested. Hashem reminded him that He only brings such punishments upon those who would benefit from them, and Israel was already beyond the point where they would benefit from this type of punishment.  

What happens next is interesting: 

It happened that when Eliyahu heard [this], he wrapped his face in his mantle, and he went out and stood by the cave’s entrance; and behold, a voice [spoke] unto him, and said, “Why are you here, Eliyahu?”

Hashem asks Eliyahu the very same question he asked him at the outset of his prophecy. And how does Eliyahu answer?

[Eliyahu] said, “I have acted with great zeal for Hashem, God of legions, for the Children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant; they have razed Your altars and have killed Your prophets by the sword, so [that] I alone have remained, and they now seek to take my life (ibid. 19:14).

Eliyahu responded in exactly the same manner that he the first time! What does this indicate? Why did Hashem ask him the same question twice, and why did Eliyahu give the same answer? Moreover, what are we supposed to learn from the fact that Eliyahu repeated his original answer to Hashem’s question? Ralbag writes:

It would seem that Eliyahu was so angry about the sin of the Jews that he didn’t pay enough attention to comprehend the meaning of Hashem’s prophecy. For this reason, Hashem responded [to Eliyahu’s response] differently than He did the first time.

What was Hashem’s response to Eliyahu the second time around?

Then Hashem said to him, “Go, return on your way, and go to the Wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, you shall anoint Chazael as king over Aram. And you shell anoint Yehu ben Nimshi as a king over Israel. And you shall anoint Elisha ben Shaphat as a navi in your stead” (ibid. 19:15-16).

That’s right: Eliyahu failed the single-question exam that Hashem set up for him, and lost his job as the navi of Israel, and was instructed to appoint Elisha as his successor. At the end of the section, the Ralbag reiterates and expands upon his theory:

[This incident with Eliyahu was recorded] to teach us that the purpose of the navi’s existence is to supervise the people in whose midst he prophesies. Thus, when the navi utilizes his prophecy for some other purpose, the Divine Wisdom will no longer consent to his being a prophet for that nation. 

For this reason we find it related that when Hashem saw that Eliyahu requested for harm to befall Israel, Hashem [attempted] to guide him to understand that He doesn’t desire to bring harm. It is for this reason that [Eliyahu] saw a prophetic vision of a wind, an earthquake, and a fire [and was told] that Hashem was not in them. Afterwards he was shown Hashem’s glory and was asked a second time, “Why are you here, Eliyahu?” It would seem that because of Eliyahu’s anger over the sin of Israel, he was incapable of deciphering the divine intent of this prophecy that Hashem had shown him. It is for this reason that he answered Hashem again in the same way that he did the first time. 

And when Hashem saw that he was utilizing his prophecy [in an attempt] to bring harm to Israel – which was the opposite of what [Hashem] intended – then He informed him that he was to appoint Elisha as a navi in his place …

In other words, when Hashem rhetorically asked, “Why are you here?” He wasn’t asking about why Eliyahu was here, in this physical location of Har Sinai. Rather, he was asking him, “What is your role here?” He was prompting Eliyahu to recall why he was appointed as navi in the first place, and to examine whether his present request was consistent with that role. Hashem even gave him a hint in the form of the vision about the destructive phenomena and the still, thin sound. But when Hashem asked Eliyahu the same question again, and Eliyahu repeated his wrong answer, that was it. He had missed his one opportunity for teshuvah, and the divine plan had to change.

A Take-away Lesson for Non-neviim

In Hilchos Deos 6:7, the Rambam presents the mitzvah upon every Jew to rebuke his fellow Jew. He walks us through the proper procedure for delivering and accepting rebuke, and cautions us not to violate the Torah-prohibition against embarrassing a fellow Jew – especially in public. However, he adds a qualification to this prohibition:

In which cases does this prohibition apply? In matters between man and man. But in matters of heaven, if a person doesn't return [in teshuvah] in private, we shame him in public, publicize his sin, insult him to his face, and degrade him and curse him until he returns to the good - just as all of the neviim of Israel did.*

There are many of us (myself included) who sometimes find ourselves feeling anger at our fellow Jews for their words, their actions, and their beliefs which we consider to be wrong or evil. We are sometimes prone to shaming, bad-mouthing, insulting, degrading, and cursing those whom we feel “have forsaken the covenant of Hashem,” believing ourselves to be “acting with great zeal for Hashem, God of Legions” – just like Eliyahu ha’Navi.

At times like these, when we feel ourselves in the grip of such righteous zeal, it would behoove us to remember what happened to Eliyahu. He was acting for the sake of Hashem, and he did have Israel’s interests in mind. Nevertheless, his anger affected his role as the guide and shepherd of Israel. Because he allowed his anger to cloud his mind, Hashem removed him from his leadership position.

If this was Hashem’s will in the case of Eliyahu ha’Navi, kal va’chomer for lowly individuals such as ourselves, whose religious zeal is almost entirely a psychological byproduct of our ignorance and our numerous ethical imperfections. If Eliyahu ha’Navi lacked sufficient anger-management skills to prevent his personal feelings from affecting his efforts to better the lot of his Jewish brethren, then certainly we – at least, the vast majority of us – are in no position to express our righteous indignation at those we deem to be wrong.

And if we are compelled to attempt to correct our fellow Jews, we would benefit by remembering that Hashem is not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire – but in the still, thin sound.

* It should be noted that this halacha may or may not apply nowadays. I have heard chachamim say things to the effect of, “Bizman ha’zeh, we don’t know how to give rebuke” and I have likewise been told that bizman ha’zeh, we no longer utilize the method of “public shaming and shunning” as a catalyst for teshuvah, since it is likely to backfire. Although I hope that a person would draw this conclusion from the blog post itself, I nevertheless felt that this point deserved its own footnote.