Now, that’s a stunning statement – it’s almost not understandable at all. Because it could have said, “Here is Elisha who learned from Eliyahu Hanavi the methods of achieving nevuah.” Eliyahu was the one who trained Elisha to be a navi. Eliyahu had a school of bnei hanevi’im and he brought up Elisha in the darkei hanevuah – he taught him everything. But no, that’s not mentioned at all. All the secrets of the Torah, all the darkei Hashem, everything else that was taught in that great academy of nevuah, nothing is mentioned of that. The only thing that deserves mention is that Elisha poured water on the hands of Eliyahu Hanavi!
So the Gemara tells us that we see from here that, הָ„ּוּמƒּלƒמ ר≈ ֹ̇יו הָרֹוּ ̇ ל∆ׁ ּ̆הָׁ ּ̆וּמƒׁ ̆ הָלֹו„¿ּ‚ – serving the one who teaches Torah is even greater than learning Torah from him. And why is that? Because washing hands is a physical closeness! The physical closeness to Eliyahu, to a man upon whom the Shechina rested in greatest proportion, was such a great merit that it’s like being close to Hashem even more than the closeness by learning the Torah. In a certain sense it’s even more important than learning. Believe me coming to visit a live Chafetz Chaim is better than reading the sefer Chafetz Chaim.
