Don't Mess with the Messiahs of the Future
I Chronicles.16:22
Don’t hurt the children. Again and again, from every war zone in the world we hear these words and see how they are ignored with cruelty.
Often the first vulnerable victims of violence, our children are not only our future but the very essence of our existence. They are the messiahs out of this mess.
When it comes to protecting children as a top priority, even this chapter of Chronicles contains a mysterious verse that has been used through the ages to advocate for extra care for the youngest and most precious among us.
Now, yet again, we must hear these warnings and take them to heart - everywhere.
The warning shows up in the context of a celebratory poem.
After David deposits the Holy Ark in its new resting place on top of the hill in Jerusalem, despite resistance and protest, the Levites start singing a celebratory hymn. It’s long, and familiar - the verses were already sung in Psalm 105, a mix of praises for God and for the king, a political statement meant for the rest of the world to notice, and a specific, strange warning:
אַֽל־תִּגְּעוּ֙ בִּמְשִׁיחָ֔י וּבִנְבִיאַ֖י אַל־תָּרֵֽעוּ׃
‘Do not touch My anointed ones; do not harm My prophets’
I Chronicles.16:22
What’s this warning about? The original context may be simple - the kings are the one anointed, and the prophets are the ones doing it. In other words - don’t mess with the power brokers of the kingdom - at risk of messing with God.
But later generations, post kings and power brokers, came up with other interpretations and some of them still resonate, even more so, today.
For some medieval readers this warning was to the people of the world, and the ones anointed and prophetic were the entire nation of Israel. In some ways this was, and remains, wishful thinking.
But in the Babylonian Talmud’s Tractate Shabbat, the verse was interpreted very differently:
Rab Judah said in the name of Rav: What is the meaning of the verse “Do not touch My anointed ones, and to My prophets do no harm”?
“Do not touch My anointed ones” – this refers to schoolchildren.
“And to My prophets do no harm” – this refers to Torah scholars.
Identifying the anointed and the prophets with those who dwell in the study hall is not surprising. In many places in Talmudic literature, the sages are portrayed as the successors of biblical leaders—the prophets, patriarchs, military leaders, and kings.
But here, special emphasis is placed on the children. They are the ones anointed, as kings once were, and as the messiah will one day be - to help us hold on to the future, and to lead us towards the horizon.
This section in the Talmud continues with a famous sentence that honors each exhale:
Reish Lakish said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi:
The world endures only because of the breath of schoolchildren.
The response of two later sages, which appears further on in the Talmudic discussion, clarifies the reason for this:
Rav Pappa asked Abaye: “ what about us adults?”
He replied: “The breath that contains sin cannot be compared to the breath that contains no sin.”
Why breath? Perhaps because the vapor that comes out of our mouths is a valuable to life as it invisible. And so it often is the case with the more vulnerable in our society. Like children.
This Talmudic reading comes to remind us that the great ones of the world are neither political leaders nor even the great Torah scholars, but rather the little children who deserve to grow in peace, to sit and study, healthy and happy. Whatever the messiah is or the messianic aspirations - it’s the children who will carry on this torch towards the future.
With a loving gaze, tinged perhaps with a subtle note of envy, the sages praise the innocence of childhood and its sinless breath—much as many adults still do today.
The poet Shaul Tchernichovsky wrote his own Hebrew version of this ideal, in the late 19the century
The world—by whose merit does it exist?
By the merit of the little ones,
Everywhere, in every age,
By the merit of the world’s small children
The world exists!
On this day, and every day, whatever interests and priorities direct our dealings, don’t forget to save, protect, prioritize, defend and save the children. How else may we provide them and us a future that can lessen the guilt, reduce the sinful structures that we too inherited, and pave paths towards much better days?
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