Sermon Resource for Shluchim
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ב''ה SERMON RESOURCE FOR SHLUCHIM DISTRIBUTION DATE: WEDNESDAY , NOVEMBER 1 2017 – 12 CHESHVAN 5778 PARSHAS VAYEIRA SERMON TITLE: CPR for the Jewish Soul Vayeira CPR for the Jewish Soul Good Shabbos! Not to get into politics, but it is a known fact that just before the U.S. elections last years, now-First Daughter Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner paid a visit to the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe. And regardless of where we stand on President Trump, it seems that her prayers were answered. So let’s talk a bit about the concept of going to the grave of a holy man to pray. The idea of praying at a holy person’s resting so that his or her soul in Heaven prays for you before G-d is an idea that appears for the first time in this week’s Torah portion—a Parshah that is totally filled with miracles. To begin with, the Parshah tells us how Avraham moved to a place called Grar—where he immediately declared that “Sarah is my sister!” because the locals would otherwise kill him. Now, the people of Grar were very “proper,” you see. They would never consort with a married woman. No—they would simply murder her husband first, and then the woman would become “available.” So Avimelech, the king of Grar, sent for Sarah to be brought to him. But G-d came to him in a dream and said to him, “You are going to die!” for taking a married woman. But Avimelech justified himself, telling G-d in the dream, “I didn’t know she was married!” and G-d agreed with him and told him that since he had indeed acted innocently, “I did not let you touch her; and now, return the wife of the man, for he is a prophet and he shall pray for you and you shall live.” And ultimately, “Avraham prayed to G-d and G-d healed Avimelech…” (he had been punished with an illness for taking a married woman), “and they gave birth” (Bereishis 20). So we have something strange going on here! G-d himself first comes to Avimelech in a dream and has a full conversation with him. Avimelech argues, “I didn’t know she was married!” and G-d agrees with him. But then, not only does G-d punish him and his entire household with an illness anyway (why G-d did so is another entire discussion), but instead of curing Avimelech right there on the spot, G-d sends Avimelech to a prophet to pray for him. In other words, G-d sent Avimelech to a tzadik (a righteous man or holy man), and only after the tzadik prayed for him was he saved. And so ever since, from the days of Avraham on, we Jews have known that if you want your prayer to be accepted, you need a tzadik to pray for you. 2 Right after that in the Torah, we read how “G-d remembered Sarah”—the miracle of the birth of Yitzchak. And while our Parshah tells us primarily about miracles that G-d did for tzadikim, our Haftarah this week teaches us about miracles that the Prophets did for ordinary people (Melachim II, chap. 4). So, speaking of our Haftarah, our Haftarah tells us about the Prophet Elisha (who actually performed many miracles—twice as many as his master, the Prophet Eliyahu). And at the start of the Haftarah, we are told about the “Miracle of the Oil”—but then we get a story that is very similar to the birth of Yitzchak, and the story constitutes the longest and most central part of the Haftarah. The story goes as follows. Elisha used to visit the city of Shunam, a city from the era of the Prophets which stood near modern-day Afula, about 30 kilometers from Haifa. Elisha at the time was starting his “career” as a Prophet, and not too many people knew of him. Now in Shunam there was a “great woman,” a lady of wealth and stature, whose sharp perception told her when Elisha visited that here was no ordinary man but a holy man. And so she pressed him to be a guest at her mansion, and he agreed—and not only that, but it became his regular custom. Every time Elisha visited Shunam after that, he was this society lady’s guest. So the lady suggested to her husband that it would be appropriate to build a new floor on the roof of the house. The new floor would consist of a tiny private suite containing a bed, a desk, a chair and a lamp. This would allow the visiting Prophet privacy, ensuring that no one would bother him. “And the day came,” the Haftarah tells us—the next time Elisha visited Shunam, he indeed used his new private suite and slept there. And then, the Haftarah tells us, the Prophet summons his gracious hostess (who is never identified by name but is merely called the “Isha HaShunamit— the Shunamite Lady”) and tells her that since she has shown such concern for him and his entourage over the years, he now wants to give something back to her—he wants to do something for her. (Tzadikim have always been known to never remain “in debt” to anyone—if someone did them a favor, they would always try to repay it, and often doubly so.) So Elisha asks her: Perhaps you need me to speak on your behalf to the king or the general? In plain English, he asked, “Do you need anything from the White House?” But this “great woman” simply replies, “B’soch ami ani yoshevess”—I dwell amongst my people. That meant, “I’m happy with what I have; I have no need for connections with the king.” 3 So along comes Geichazi, the Prophet’s personal aide, and says to Elisha, “But she has no son!” So Elisha calls her (without her asking for anything) and promises here: “At this time next year you shall hug a son.” So the Shunamite Lady reacts: “No, my master, the man of G-d! Do not lie to your maidservant!” And what she means by that is that she didn’t want any false hopes. (And, by the way, what that little exchange teaches us is that when one gives another a blessing, the receiver should immediately reply, “Amen!” without stirring up any doubts.) Nevertheless, the Prophet’s words came true and the Shunamite Lady gave birth to a son. “And the boy grew up,” the Haftarah continues, “and the day came and he went out to his father to the harvesters.” But out in the field, perhaps due to overexposure to the sun, he suddenly got terrible pains in his head, and he said to his father, “My head! My head!” His head hurt him a lot. Well, they went back home and just like that, the lad died. Well, the Shunamite Lady physically carried her son’s body up to the Prophet’s suite on the roof, laid him out on the Prophet’s bed, closed the door behind her and left. She then told her husband that she was rushing over to the Prophet himself—and when her husband asked her why, she didn’t tell him. She just said “Bye!” and left. Now she made her way to Mt. Carmel, the primary residence of Elisha the Prophet. When Elisha saw her approaching from a distance, he told Geichazi to run out to ask her if everything was okay—because it was not normal for her to just show up for a visit in the middle of the day. But she came in to Elisha—and when she did, she fell to the ground and grabbed Elisha’s feet. Geichazi was shocked and drew near to push her back. But then the Prophet said to him, “Leave her alone for her soul is bitter unto her, and G-d hid it from me and did not tell me.” (A Prophet only knows what G-d reveals to him, and here Elisha is saying that he understood immediately that the worst had happened, “and G-d hid it from me.”) So the Shunamite Lady then addresses the Prophet: “And she said, “Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not mislead me?’ ” Now the Prophet turned to Geichazi, gave him his staff, and told him to go to Shunam immediately and not to talk to anyone along the way, and to put the staff on the boy’s face as soon as he got there. So Geichazi indeed went, but this great and wise woman still swore that she would not leave the Prophet unless he personally came back with her to her house. And so Elisha agreed to come along. Meanwhile, Geichazi managed to run ahead to Shunam—and come back with the message that he had put the staff on the child’s face but that it hadn’t worked. Why? Well, the Talmud tells us that he hadn’t obeyed the Prophet—that when people on the way asked him where he was going, he 4 chuckled and said that the Prophet had sent him to resurrect a dead boy with a stick. So it’s no wonder that Geichazi didn’t bring the child back to life— because the very moment the messenger doesn’t believe in the message, there’s no chance that the message will succeed.