Tanach: The Beginner's Guide to Being a Prophet

A couple of days ago I read a great essay by Yairah Amit. Amit argued that the story of Shmuel's becoming a prophet as described in Shmuel 1:3:1-21 reflects matters of interest and comes to answer subjects that were debated in the circles of the prophets of Yisrael. In short:

  • Prophets were rare in the time of the judges.
  • People generally turned to the kohanim (priests) for guidance.
  • The story is designed in a way that shows the divine providence leaving the kohanim and passing over to the prophets.
  • Prophecy was individualistic, i.e., only the prophet could hear Hashem talking to him.
In another essay I saw today by Chaim Gevaryahu, he argued (based on similar prior suggestions) that most prophets of the early days made a living off of donations from people who came to them, or they wandered from town to town and city to city collecting donations. This can be seen in several instances in Tanach, including by Eliyahu, Elisha, Shmuel, Achiyah Hashiloni and more.

Now, about a year ago I read an essay that argued that Eliyahu put his head between his knees (Kings 1:18:42) because it was an ancient form of meditation. Such a meditative state would have allowed him to reach higher spheres of spirituality.

In a prior post, I analyzed the Book of Yechezkel and suggested that Yechezkel describes the journey of a prophet from novice to master.

All of this information that can be gleaned from Tanach as well as many more things made me conclude a couple of days ago, after reading Amit's essay, that it's possible that a hypothetical manual for prophets was planted into the Tanach as a whole. I'm not saying that necessarily such a work ever existed. Rather, I think it may be possible that one could learn how to be a prophet via Tanach. All the necessary information is there: Meditative positions, manners of prayer, the way of life, and more.

This sounds very tantalizing. But here's the tragedy: It's like the way one of my rabbis in yeshiva described academic scholars of Kabbalah: "Academic scholars of Kabbalah are like accountants: They know where all the money is but can't do anything with it"...

Likewise, we know where the money is - but we can't do anything with it. The truth is, to properly become a prophet, you'd need a prophet to show you the ropes. Or even if you don't have a master, you'd still need to have some way to know what to think about when meditating, how to interpret signs and symbols, etc. And then, of course, you'd still need to be deemed worthy of prophecy by Hashem.

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