How fitting the selection for today’s haftorah is! It is fitting not simply in the stories that it relates but in the very fact that, as Professor P. Meltzer writes, it is the first time since the start of the Torah reading cycle that the haftorah relates the accomplishments of the righteous, G-d-fearing individual, i.e., the navi Elisha, just as the Torah parshah now focuses upon the deeds of the righteous, G-d-fearing Avraham and Sarah.
The haftorah, taken from the fourth chapter of Melachim Bet, actually tells two stories. At first glance, the initial story seems to serve as a mere introduction to the second. After all, the second and lengthier story of Elisha and the Shunamite woman appears to be closely connected to the events in our parshah, as it deals with the miraculous birth of a son to a once-barren woman and her elderly husband and the near loss of that cherished son to his parents. The parallels to the stories of the miraculous birth of Yitzchak and to Akeidat Yitzchak, the near-loss of that son, are clear.
But the first story also echoes the events of the parshah quite powerfully. Here we read of a woman, widowed of her righteous, G-d-fearing husband, who stands to lose her only two sons. In a similar fashion, we read in the parshah of a righteous, G-d fearing husband who stands to lose both of his sons: Yishma’el, whom he was told to send away, and Yitzchak, whom he was told to sacrifice.
However, as Rav Yehuda Shaviv explains, there is also an interesting contrast between the parshah and the haftorah in the behavior of two troubled, grieving mothers. In the Torah, we read of Hagar who, upon seeing (what she believes to be) the imminent death of her son, throws him beneath a bush and cries mournfully until the angel appears to her and tells her, “Kumi, s’ee et b’nech,” “Get up and carry your son,” to return to the son she had cast aside, and subsequently shows her the source of water that would revive him. In the haftorah, on the other hand, the Shunamite woman does not cast the child aside. Instead, she places her son on the bed of the prophet and travels to Elisha for divine guidance. Nor does she suffice with summoning Elisha or depending upon the navi’s servant, Gechazi, to revive her son. The Shunamite woman declares that she will not leave Elisha, insisting on remaining until the prophet brings her son back to life.
I find the contrast in the actions of the mothers to be most inspiring. In difficult times, worried parents, anxious and concerned about their children, refuse to give up hope, refuse to throw the troubled or sickly youth “beneath the bush,” but search for answers, even organize new funds and support groups, in order to help their own and others suffering in a similar fashion.
These seemingly average parents, people who never imagined what they could, or would, accomplish, follow the lead of the Shunamite and the example of Avraham (“Vayelchu shneihem yachdav”). And they prove that they are anything but ordinary—they are EXTRAordinary!
