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Dec. 13th, 2005 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mari4212Okay, you know what? Dr. Stein's read it, and from the sound of it she's already graded it. I'm putting my midrash up.
I'm cutting it to keep from killing my friendslist.
If you want the biblical story, turn to 2 Kings 4.
Anna’s Story: a Midrash on the Shunammite Woman
I have always been a determined person. Or at least, that is how I would phrase it. Other people have put it, less politely, but perhaps more accurately, that I am as stubborn as a mule, and less likely to listen to reason than one. It comes out over and over again in the stories my mother told me over our spinning, stories of when I was an infant girl, crying for hours when I did not get my way. As she tells it, the second I learned to talk I would try to convince the servants to follow me in my schemes. As I grew, I learned slowly how to temper this determination, to focus it on the things I could achieve. What use was it if I longed for the moon, as there was no way for me to gain it? That determination would serve me well in the years to come.
I grew up knowing that I was pretty, and that my father was wealthy. I felt confident that I would have a husband, and sure that I should have a say in whom was chosen. Looking back, I can only feel relief that my personal choice echoed my father’s. I was young, and naïve, and very sheltered, like any proper modest maiden of Israel. Well, perhaps modesty is not that good of a term to apply to me, for my lack of modesty is my besetting sin. It is better to say that my parents cared about my reputation and how my behavior would reflect upon my family, and they kept me in my place as a young girl. Regardless of why, I met very few men as a girl, and I had no idea of what they were like. When my father started to talk to my future husband, all I noticed was his kind eyes and strong voice. To be sure, he was older than I was, almost the age of my father, in fact, but that meant nothing to me once I saw the look in his eyes. This was a man I could trust.
I did not love him then. How could I? I was just a girl, barely fourteen, and I did not know him beyond the look in his eyes and my father’s comments about him. My father was happy that he was a landowner, a farmer who would be able to support my children and me in the future. The wedding feast was long and lavish, a whirl of excitement. And in the end I was married. My girlhood was over; a new life was beginning. Noam, my husband, encouraged me. With his support, I grew into a strong woman.
It was because of Noam’s tutelage that I became a leader of the community. From the beginning, when I was just out of girlhood, he encouraged me to take a part in the decisions about the household. Within two years of my marriage, he placed me in sole charge of the household, and asked only that I ask him before major decisions were made. He took me seriously, only disagreeing when he thought that my ideas would lead me into trouble. And he encouraged me to go out of the house, and participate in the local community. It might have been my tribe, but I would not have had the power and influence that I eventually gained without Noam’s constant support. He always stood behind me.
The greatest sorrow in our lives was that we were unable to have children. For the first two years or so, it passed almost unnoticed by me that we had not conceived. I still felt so young, so how could I be expected to bear a child when I had so much to learn? I did not realize something was different about us until my younger sister, who had been married two years after I had, conceived only a few months after her marriage. It was a sudden shock, like the thunderstorms that came from nowhere. I was no longer a girl, but a woman. Why had I not conceived?
It took me over four years to learn to deal with the fact that I would not have children. For the first two years after my realization, I prayed every month that I might conceive, and I was constantly disappointed. I spent those two years varying between the heights of happiness at each delayed bleeding, and the depths of sadness when it inevitably came. And then slowly, gradually, I began to accept that I would most likely never bear children. I grieved, but in time it became a quieter grief. By the sixth year of my marriage to Noam, I had become accustomed to that loss. The years passed, and different things began to occupy my mind. I involved myself in the life of my town, and in the society of my tribe. The respect my husband had earned in his life carried over to me, and I strengthened it, eventually becoming respected in my own right.
* * *
I first saw Elisha when I was twenty-six, twelve years after I married Noam and six years after I had stopped hoping for a child. I was in the market, idly listening to the women gossip as I shopped. I distinctly remember that I was examining a basket of figs, although why that detail remains so clear in my memory when so many others have faded beyond recall is a mystery to me. Be that as it may, it was then when the whispers about the holy man of God reached my ears.
“Elisha? Here?” I heard one woman say.
“To see the king, is what I’ve heard,” her companion replied.
I had long known of the prophet Elijah, and it seemed that no one in all of the land could have not heard of the wondrous tale of Elijah’s being taken up by the Lord, and of Elisha’s succession into his teacher’s role. I longed to hear him speak, and I knew that Noam would as well. I hurried home and ordered the servants to prepare a meal appropriate for serving to the prophet before I rushed back to the marketplace.
I found the prophet standing in the center of town, with his servant there beside him. He looked so tired, as if he’d been walking for days without true rest. Even if I hadn’t already decided to invite him to eat with my husband, I would have then, just to give him the rest he so desperately needed.
Looking back, I am amazed at my impetuous bravado, rushing up to him like an infatuated child begging her hero to come sit by her. To this day, I still do not know if it was any of my words that convinced him to come with me, or if he simply did not have anywhere else to go. I certainly do not see what would have been compelling about my invitation, save for the influence that my husband and I had among the town, and he certainly had not been there long enough to be aware of that. Elisha spent that night talking with Noam as they ate, while his servant, Gehazi, ate with our own servants. I of course, was kept out of the discussions.
That night, a pattern was set, a pattern that would continue for several years. Elisha came through the town every few months, and we always prepared a special meal for him. Four years passed in this manner, before it struck me that if Elisha had his own room, one that could be kept ritually holy for him, as was required, that he would be able to stay and sleep, instead of having to dine and then leave. I mentioned my idea to Noam the morning after the prophet had left on his most recent visit. Noam loved the idea, and we began work on the room’s construction immediately. Two months later right after we had finished building and furnishing the room, Elisha again visited our city. The look on his face when Noam showed him the finished room! Never before had I seen the prophet look so grateful, so honestly pleased with a simple human kindness. He thanked Noam, repeatedly and enthusiastically, for providing him with this resting-place. When Noam told Elisha that I was the one to propose building the room, his face lit up even further. He praised me to Noam, telling him that few men could hope to have a wife as gracious and hospitable as I. I was never more flattered or embarrassed in all of my life. Regardless of anything else Elisha was, he was also a gifted speaker with a knack for knowing exactly what to say to make someone feel appreciated.
The meal that night ran long. Elisha and my husband spoke late into the night, and I do believe that they opened up to one another in a way that they normally never would have. That night remains special, although the events of the following morning eclipsed it.
The next day, Elisha sent Gehazi to bring me to his room. He spoke with incredible formality, perhaps as a way to regain his dignity after his effusive thanks of the previous night. Following strict protocol, he ordered his servant Gehazi to speak to me on his behalf, echoing his words, although I could hear him plainly in the room.
Gehazi spoke to me, saying, “You have lavished all this care on us; what can we do for you? Can we say a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?"
I almost laughed. For all of the times that Elisha dined with us, he never had spent much time in the city. He could not know how large and influential my family was, I needed no word from him to ensure my protection, even if something were to happen to my husband. Instead, I merely stated, “I am living among my own people”. Elisha frowned at that, perhaps caught off guard at having offered something that I had no need of. He was a good man, and he wanted to return the favor I had shown to him, but his major gift, that of his influence with those in authority, was unnecessary. He dismissed me, and I left to go fulfill my duties with the household.
I did not hear Elisha’s conversation with his servant directly. It was only afterwards that a maidservant who had been cleaning nearby and overheard their discussion told me. She said that Elisha, knowing that Gehazi had spent more time with the household, asked him what I needed. Gehazi had listened to our servants’ gossip, and told Elisha of my barrenness. At the time, I considered the offer of a gift dropped. Elisha had generously offered something; it was not his fault that I did not require that aid.
So I was surprised when Elisha again called me to his room. But that surprise was nothing when compared to the softly spoken promise that he made to me as I stood in the entryway. “By this time next year, you shall be holding your son,” he said.
My head spun. A child? A son of my own? I nearly fainted with shock. The longing and grief that I had put away for so long came speeding back to me as if the years in between had been nothing. Ten years ago that dream had died. And Elisha was offering it back to me?
Words tumbled out of my mouth, “Please, my lord, do not deceive your servant”. Don’t build up my hopes only to have them dashed down again. He reassured me, swearing that it was a promise of the Lord and of his, that in return for my hospitality I would receive my reward.
The next few months passed in a blur of joy. I did indeed conceive, me, the one thought to be long past this chance. At times I could not believe my luck. I was not Sarah, who had long been promised a son by the Lord. I was no great woman of legend, and my husband, beloved as he was, was no patriarch. And yet, here I was child swelling in my womb.
***
When our son was born Noam and I knew exactly what to name him. After all, didn’t Jonathan mean, “gift from God”? In truth, he was a gift, an absolute treasure. He was a loving, cheerful boy, with his father’s loving personality. He was so bright, so eager to learn and be of help. He followed Noam and I around the house from the time he started to toddle. He was so excited when he turned ten, when his father agreed to let him go out into the fields with him, to see what the servants did during the harvest. That day will live forever in my memory.
He left that morning, bright-eyed and excited. At last he would see where his father went, at last he would see what a harvest was like. When the servant brought him home later that morning, he was limp and dragging. His eyes had dulled, and his face was pale and clammy. I held him, terrified, all morning. When he stopped breathing, my heart felt as though it would stop as well. How could this happen? How could my baby, my precious child, the one I’d loved beyond all else, be gone? How could this gift from God be taken away from me so fast? I was lost in a world of grief beyond any I’d ever known. But then my grief transmuted into anger, and the same determination I’d held all my life. My son would not be lost to me. Elisha had given him to me. He was a prophet of God, a holy man. He would be able to save my son. I would make him.
I laid my son in the bedroom I had ordered built for the prophet. He would be safe there until I returned with my answer. My husband was just coming in from the fields as I walked down from the roof. He asked me about our son, but I did not answer. This was the first time that I would not consult my husband. It would take too long to discuss, and time was of the essence if Jonathan was to be healed. I simply said, “Let me have a servant and a donkey. I must go quickly to the man of God, and I will be back.”
Noam was confused, I knew that. He had sent Jonathan home earlier, he expected me to tell him of his son’s condition. My sudden need to go see Elisha was incomprehensible to him. But I could not wait and tell him of his son’s death. He was old, near sixty, and it would hurt him deeply to learn of Jonathan, especially since I hoped to make it right. “Why are you going to him today?” he asked. “It is neither the new moon or the Sabbath.” As far as Noam knew, those could be the only two reasons for me to need to see Elisha. I did not answer him; I simply left, instructing the servant to take me to Elisha’s camp at Mount Carmel without stopping.
When I arrived, Gehazi came out to greet me, asking solicitous questions about my husband and son. I knew he did not know what agony those innocent questions caused me, as they forced me to remember my son dying in my arms, but still they felt like knives, cutting at me in my grief. I brushed him off. I did not want to exchange pleasantries or polite conversation. I needed to talk with Elisha. He was the one who had promised me my son, and it was he and he alone who could save my son now. I rushed to Elisha, knelt before him, and grasped his feet. “Did I ask my lord for a son?” I cried, the full anguish of my heart in my voice. “Did I not beg you not to deceive me?”
At my words, Elisha knew something was wrong. He ordered Gehazi to go to my house, to place his staff on my son. Yet something inside me insisted that that would not be enough to bring my child back to me. Elisha alone would be able to petition God to send me back my son. I cried again, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not release you!”
At these words, Elisha agreed to come back with me. We met Gehazi when we were nearly there, and he confessed to Elisha and I that he had not been able to heal Jonathan. The prophet was my last chance to regain my son.
When we arrived back at my home, Elisha alone went up to his
chamber, where my son was lying. Noam and I remained below, hoping that we would be granted a reprieve that our child would be given back to us. I never want to recall the way I felt waiting that half-hour as Elisha remained in a closed room with the body of my child. When Gehazi escorted me up the stairs, and I saw my son breathing again, my world came back to life. I flung myself at Elisha’s feet, in tears of gratitude. And then I was able to take Jonathan down the stairs, and show his father that he lived. There are no words to encompass the joy I felt, the sense of renewed existence and life granted to me on that day. No one who had not suffered as I had that day, and then been comforted in the same way, could ever possibly understand. And those who have been through it don’t need words to express the emotions experienced. They remain unsaid, but visible in the eyes. Noam and I were touched by that day, and it changed the rest of our lives.
I'm cutting it to keep from killing my friendslist.
If you want the biblical story, turn to 2 Kings 4.
Anna’s Story: a Midrash on the Shunammite Woman
I have always been a determined person. Or at least, that is how I would phrase it. Other people have put it, less politely, but perhaps more accurately, that I am as stubborn as a mule, and less likely to listen to reason than one. It comes out over and over again in the stories my mother told me over our spinning, stories of when I was an infant girl, crying for hours when I did not get my way. As she tells it, the second I learned to talk I would try to convince the servants to follow me in my schemes. As I grew, I learned slowly how to temper this determination, to focus it on the things I could achieve. What use was it if I longed for the moon, as there was no way for me to gain it? That determination would serve me well in the years to come.
I grew up knowing that I was pretty, and that my father was wealthy. I felt confident that I would have a husband, and sure that I should have a say in whom was chosen. Looking back, I can only feel relief that my personal choice echoed my father’s. I was young, and naïve, and very sheltered, like any proper modest maiden of Israel. Well, perhaps modesty is not that good of a term to apply to me, for my lack of modesty is my besetting sin. It is better to say that my parents cared about my reputation and how my behavior would reflect upon my family, and they kept me in my place as a young girl. Regardless of why, I met very few men as a girl, and I had no idea of what they were like. When my father started to talk to my future husband, all I noticed was his kind eyes and strong voice. To be sure, he was older than I was, almost the age of my father, in fact, but that meant nothing to me once I saw the look in his eyes. This was a man I could trust.
I did not love him then. How could I? I was just a girl, barely fourteen, and I did not know him beyond the look in his eyes and my father’s comments about him. My father was happy that he was a landowner, a farmer who would be able to support my children and me in the future. The wedding feast was long and lavish, a whirl of excitement. And in the end I was married. My girlhood was over; a new life was beginning. Noam, my husband, encouraged me. With his support, I grew into a strong woman.
It was because of Noam’s tutelage that I became a leader of the community. From the beginning, when I was just out of girlhood, he encouraged me to take a part in the decisions about the household. Within two years of my marriage, he placed me in sole charge of the household, and asked only that I ask him before major decisions were made. He took me seriously, only disagreeing when he thought that my ideas would lead me into trouble. And he encouraged me to go out of the house, and participate in the local community. It might have been my tribe, but I would not have had the power and influence that I eventually gained without Noam’s constant support. He always stood behind me.
The greatest sorrow in our lives was that we were unable to have children. For the first two years or so, it passed almost unnoticed by me that we had not conceived. I still felt so young, so how could I be expected to bear a child when I had so much to learn? I did not realize something was different about us until my younger sister, who had been married two years after I had, conceived only a few months after her marriage. It was a sudden shock, like the thunderstorms that came from nowhere. I was no longer a girl, but a woman. Why had I not conceived?
It took me over four years to learn to deal with the fact that I would not have children. For the first two years after my realization, I prayed every month that I might conceive, and I was constantly disappointed. I spent those two years varying between the heights of happiness at each delayed bleeding, and the depths of sadness when it inevitably came. And then slowly, gradually, I began to accept that I would most likely never bear children. I grieved, but in time it became a quieter grief. By the sixth year of my marriage to Noam, I had become accustomed to that loss. The years passed, and different things began to occupy my mind. I involved myself in the life of my town, and in the society of my tribe. The respect my husband had earned in his life carried over to me, and I strengthened it, eventually becoming respected in my own right.
* * *
I first saw Elisha when I was twenty-six, twelve years after I married Noam and six years after I had stopped hoping for a child. I was in the market, idly listening to the women gossip as I shopped. I distinctly remember that I was examining a basket of figs, although why that detail remains so clear in my memory when so many others have faded beyond recall is a mystery to me. Be that as it may, it was then when the whispers about the holy man of God reached my ears.
“Elisha? Here?” I heard one woman say.
“To see the king, is what I’ve heard,” her companion replied.
I had long known of the prophet Elijah, and it seemed that no one in all of the land could have not heard of the wondrous tale of Elijah’s being taken up by the Lord, and of Elisha’s succession into his teacher’s role. I longed to hear him speak, and I knew that Noam would as well. I hurried home and ordered the servants to prepare a meal appropriate for serving to the prophet before I rushed back to the marketplace.
I found the prophet standing in the center of town, with his servant there beside him. He looked so tired, as if he’d been walking for days without true rest. Even if I hadn’t already decided to invite him to eat with my husband, I would have then, just to give him the rest he so desperately needed.
Looking back, I am amazed at my impetuous bravado, rushing up to him like an infatuated child begging her hero to come sit by her. To this day, I still do not know if it was any of my words that convinced him to come with me, or if he simply did not have anywhere else to go. I certainly do not see what would have been compelling about my invitation, save for the influence that my husband and I had among the town, and he certainly had not been there long enough to be aware of that. Elisha spent that night talking with Noam as they ate, while his servant, Gehazi, ate with our own servants. I of course, was kept out of the discussions.
That night, a pattern was set, a pattern that would continue for several years. Elisha came through the town every few months, and we always prepared a special meal for him. Four years passed in this manner, before it struck me that if Elisha had his own room, one that could be kept ritually holy for him, as was required, that he would be able to stay and sleep, instead of having to dine and then leave. I mentioned my idea to Noam the morning after the prophet had left on his most recent visit. Noam loved the idea, and we began work on the room’s construction immediately. Two months later right after we had finished building and furnishing the room, Elisha again visited our city. The look on his face when Noam showed him the finished room! Never before had I seen the prophet look so grateful, so honestly pleased with a simple human kindness. He thanked Noam, repeatedly and enthusiastically, for providing him with this resting-place. When Noam told Elisha that I was the one to propose building the room, his face lit up even further. He praised me to Noam, telling him that few men could hope to have a wife as gracious and hospitable as I. I was never more flattered or embarrassed in all of my life. Regardless of anything else Elisha was, he was also a gifted speaker with a knack for knowing exactly what to say to make someone feel appreciated.
The meal that night ran long. Elisha and my husband spoke late into the night, and I do believe that they opened up to one another in a way that they normally never would have. That night remains special, although the events of the following morning eclipsed it.
The next day, Elisha sent Gehazi to bring me to his room. He spoke with incredible formality, perhaps as a way to regain his dignity after his effusive thanks of the previous night. Following strict protocol, he ordered his servant Gehazi to speak to me on his behalf, echoing his words, although I could hear him plainly in the room.
Gehazi spoke to me, saying, “You have lavished all this care on us; what can we do for you? Can we say a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?"
I almost laughed. For all of the times that Elisha dined with us, he never had spent much time in the city. He could not know how large and influential my family was, I needed no word from him to ensure my protection, even if something were to happen to my husband. Instead, I merely stated, “I am living among my own people”. Elisha frowned at that, perhaps caught off guard at having offered something that I had no need of. He was a good man, and he wanted to return the favor I had shown to him, but his major gift, that of his influence with those in authority, was unnecessary. He dismissed me, and I left to go fulfill my duties with the household.
I did not hear Elisha’s conversation with his servant directly. It was only afterwards that a maidservant who had been cleaning nearby and overheard their discussion told me. She said that Elisha, knowing that Gehazi had spent more time with the household, asked him what I needed. Gehazi had listened to our servants’ gossip, and told Elisha of my barrenness. At the time, I considered the offer of a gift dropped. Elisha had generously offered something; it was not his fault that I did not require that aid.
So I was surprised when Elisha again called me to his room. But that surprise was nothing when compared to the softly spoken promise that he made to me as I stood in the entryway. “By this time next year, you shall be holding your son,” he said.
My head spun. A child? A son of my own? I nearly fainted with shock. The longing and grief that I had put away for so long came speeding back to me as if the years in between had been nothing. Ten years ago that dream had died. And Elisha was offering it back to me?
Words tumbled out of my mouth, “Please, my lord, do not deceive your servant”. Don’t build up my hopes only to have them dashed down again. He reassured me, swearing that it was a promise of the Lord and of his, that in return for my hospitality I would receive my reward.
The next few months passed in a blur of joy. I did indeed conceive, me, the one thought to be long past this chance. At times I could not believe my luck. I was not Sarah, who had long been promised a son by the Lord. I was no great woman of legend, and my husband, beloved as he was, was no patriarch. And yet, here I was child swelling in my womb.
***
When our son was born Noam and I knew exactly what to name him. After all, didn’t Jonathan mean, “gift from God”? In truth, he was a gift, an absolute treasure. He was a loving, cheerful boy, with his father’s loving personality. He was so bright, so eager to learn and be of help. He followed Noam and I around the house from the time he started to toddle. He was so excited when he turned ten, when his father agreed to let him go out into the fields with him, to see what the servants did during the harvest. That day will live forever in my memory.
He left that morning, bright-eyed and excited. At last he would see where his father went, at last he would see what a harvest was like. When the servant brought him home later that morning, he was limp and dragging. His eyes had dulled, and his face was pale and clammy. I held him, terrified, all morning. When he stopped breathing, my heart felt as though it would stop as well. How could this happen? How could my baby, my precious child, the one I’d loved beyond all else, be gone? How could this gift from God be taken away from me so fast? I was lost in a world of grief beyond any I’d ever known. But then my grief transmuted into anger, and the same determination I’d held all my life. My son would not be lost to me. Elisha had given him to me. He was a prophet of God, a holy man. He would be able to save my son. I would make him.
I laid my son in the bedroom I had ordered built for the prophet. He would be safe there until I returned with my answer. My husband was just coming in from the fields as I walked down from the roof. He asked me about our son, but I did not answer. This was the first time that I would not consult my husband. It would take too long to discuss, and time was of the essence if Jonathan was to be healed. I simply said, “Let me have a servant and a donkey. I must go quickly to the man of God, and I will be back.”
Noam was confused, I knew that. He had sent Jonathan home earlier, he expected me to tell him of his son’s condition. My sudden need to go see Elisha was incomprehensible to him. But I could not wait and tell him of his son’s death. He was old, near sixty, and it would hurt him deeply to learn of Jonathan, especially since I hoped to make it right. “Why are you going to him today?” he asked. “It is neither the new moon or the Sabbath.” As far as Noam knew, those could be the only two reasons for me to need to see Elisha. I did not answer him; I simply left, instructing the servant to take me to Elisha’s camp at Mount Carmel without stopping.
When I arrived, Gehazi came out to greet me, asking solicitous questions about my husband and son. I knew he did not know what agony those innocent questions caused me, as they forced me to remember my son dying in my arms, but still they felt like knives, cutting at me in my grief. I brushed him off. I did not want to exchange pleasantries or polite conversation. I needed to talk with Elisha. He was the one who had promised me my son, and it was he and he alone who could save my son now. I rushed to Elisha, knelt before him, and grasped his feet. “Did I ask my lord for a son?” I cried, the full anguish of my heart in my voice. “Did I not beg you not to deceive me?”
At my words, Elisha knew something was wrong. He ordered Gehazi to go to my house, to place his staff on my son. Yet something inside me insisted that that would not be enough to bring my child back to me. Elisha alone would be able to petition God to send me back my son. I cried again, “As the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not release you!”
At these words, Elisha agreed to come back with me. We met Gehazi when we were nearly there, and he confessed to Elisha and I that he had not been able to heal Jonathan. The prophet was my last chance to regain my son.
When we arrived back at my home, Elisha alone went up to his
chamber, where my son was lying. Noam and I remained below, hoping that we would be granted a reprieve that our child would be given back to us. I never want to recall the way I felt waiting that half-hour as Elisha remained in a closed room with the body of my child. When Gehazi escorted me up the stairs, and I saw my son breathing again, my world came back to life. I flung myself at Elisha’s feet, in tears of gratitude. And then I was able to take Jonathan down the stairs, and show his father that he lived. There are no words to encompass the joy I felt, the sense of renewed existence and life granted to me on that day. No one who had not suffered as I had that day, and then been comforted in the same way, could ever possibly understand. And those who have been through it don’t need words to express the emotions experienced. They remain unsaid, but visible in the eyes. Noam and I were touched by that day, and it changed the rest of our lives.
