Sometimes salvation comes from the most unexpected source - the leper, can sometimes be the poet, and at time the pioneer..
The Aramean siege on Samaria claimed its terrible toll as people starved and prices soared. Even the dung of doves was sold at exorbitant prices in the markets, if only to extract from it some seed of grain. Elisha the Prophet promised King Yehoram that salvation was imminent - the next day - but the rescue came from the unlikeliest of sources: Four lepers, the outcasts of society, even during famine and war:
וְאַרְבָּעָ֧ה אֲנָשִׁ֛ים הָי֥וּ מְצֹרָעִ֖ים פֶּ֣תַח הַשָּׁ֑עַר וַיֹּֽאמְרוּ֙ אִ֣ישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵ֔הוּ מָ֗ה אֲנַ֛חְנוּ יֹשְׁבִ֥ים פֹּ֖ה עַד־מָֽתְנוּ׃
“There were four men, lepers, outside the gate. They said to one another, “Why should we sit here waiting for death?”
The desperate lepers, with little to lose, decided to go explore the nearby Aramean military camp, so hungry as to risk being killed by the enemy. But when they reached the camp they were astounded to find it deserted. The Arameans, mistaking phantom noises for additional military support on behalf of Israel, fled, leaving all their stuff behind. The four lepers feasted and looted, before remembering their families and friends back home. They returned to Samaria with the good news. The king sent soldiers and the siege was over. Within hours, food returned, the prices dropped and life went back to normal. Although we’ll never know how many died and how steep the price for the morale and morals of the city where women cooked their own children during the siege.
What is the meaning of this story, why do the outcasts, the four lepers, matter to the city’s salvation - and to ours?
Rachel Bluwstein, Russian born Hebrew poet, who became an early pioneer in the Land of Israel, in 1909, wrote a peculiar and famous poem about this miracle story - and her problems with it. It’s called “Yom Besora” “A Day of Good Tidings” and is considered “a wonderful and unrealistic poem, an anthem of purism.”
“For a long while, the dreadful enemy
Brought Samaria to siege; Our lepers to her brought tidings.
To her brought the tidings of freedom. As Samaria besieged, the entire land,
The famine is unbearable.
But I do not want to receive news of redemption
From the lips of a leper. The pure will bring news and the pure will redeem,
And if his hand won’t be there to redeem,
Then I will choose to die from the suffering of the siege.
On the eve of the day of the great tidings. “
Alex Israel reads her poem as a way to make sense of our peculiar chapter, linking the poet’s purism in those early days of building the state of Israel, to a radical religious view that equates her and other secular pioneers - to the four lepers:
“Rachel is an idealist. She dreams of a pure, unblemished redemption, and she prefers to die in the suffering and squalor of the siege rather than receive the tidings of salvation from the unworthy.
Does Rachel’s poem express a classic Jewish perspective? Fascinatingly, the Talmud relates a scene in which the Messiah himself is a leper sitting at the gates of the city. On this basis we would say that Judaism does not always present redemption as pristine or flawless. For the Talmud, unlike for the poet Rachel, redemption may arrive precisely by means of a leper!
In an article entitled “Israel’s Independence Day: Reflections in Halacha and Hashkafa,”
Rabbi Ahron Soloveitchik addresses the question of the religious significance of the State of Israel, and the claim that if the State of Israel was established by non-observant Jews it may not be seen as religiously worthy – certainly not a redemptive occurrence. He cites the story of the leprous salvation referred to in this chapter:
‘We thus see that the miracle of the deliverance of all the inhabitants of Samaria was carried out through the medium of four lepers: physical lepers, yes; but above all, spiritual lepers…. The first argument, as to how any relief for the Jewish people could be realized through the medium of heretics (secular Jews) can easily be rebutted by the precedent of the deliverance accorded the people of Samaria through the medium of the four lepers...Consequently, we cannot ignore the significance of the establishment of the State of Israel simply because Jews who stand a substantial distance from any form of observance were at the forefront of founding the State. “
Between Rachel and Rabbi Soloveitchik’s approaches to the meaning of salvation brought about by the four lepers there’s a deep divide, signifying two of many radical ways of imagining how hope comes about and how means do or don’t justify the end.
This coming week, as Israel marks its 75h birthday amid protests and questions but also with pride and hope - it’s humbling to remember that many paths lead us home, and that the journey of history and myth requires patience, perspective and the ability to be surprised - salvation in its many forms is forever evolving.
Image: Collage of The Four Lepers, in Petrus Comestor's 'Bible Historiale', France, 1372; Miniature; at the Museum Meermanno Westreenianum, The Hague + photo of Rachel Bluwstein.