Daily Tanach Tuesday Sefer Melachim 2 Chapter 4 Part 4: Elisha miraculously provides food during famine

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* The article below is an excerpt from the above Sefer
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  1. Elisha miraculously provides food during famine:
  • Poisonous mushrooms are accidentally fed to the students: Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in the land, and the disciples of the prophets were sitting before him. Elisha instructed his servant to prepare a large pot on top of the fire and cook a stew for the students. One of the students went out to the field to gather herbs to be cooked and he found a vine in the field and gathered from it wild [poisonous[1]] mushrooms until his garment was full. He came and threw them into the pot of stew, as they did not know [that it was poisonous]. The students each had a bowl poured for them to eat and in the midst of their eating they realized that they were eating poison [as the food was extremely bitter[2]], and they cried out to Elisha and said, “There is death in the pot” and they could not continue to eat.
  • Elisha fixes the poisonous food with flour: Elisha instructed them to place flour into the pot, and then instructed all the students to eat from it and indeed they could taste no more harmful substances in the pot.
  • Elisha is given bread which miraculously feeds all the students: A man arrived from the country of Baal-Shalishah, and he brought to Elisha bread of Bikkurim, twenty loaves of barley bread, and sheaves of fresh grain in their shells, and Elisha instructed for the bread to be given to the students for them to eat. His servant however exclaimed that there is not enough bread to go around for all the one hundred men. But, Elisha persisted and said that the bread should be given to them to eat, for so has Hashem said that they should eat it and there will even be leftovers. And so it was that the bread was placed before them, and they ate and there were leftovers as Hashem had promised.

[1] Rashi 4:39

[2] Radak 4:39

About The Author

Rabbi Yaakov Goldstein is a 6th generation descendent of the famous Chief Rabbi of Izhmir, Rav Yehoshua Avraham Krispin, who authored a number of Sefarim, and was a colleague of Rav Chaim Falagi, and father in-law of the Pesach Hadvir. He currently lives with his wife Shayna, and twelve children K”H, in Tzfas, Israel. Rabbi Goldstein received Semicha from Rabbi Schneur Zalman Labkowski of the Tomchei Temimim headquarters in 2005 and served as a chaplain in the Lotar/Kalatz and K9 unit of the IDF from years 2005-2008. He is also a certified Shochet, and has performed Hashgacha work in slaughterhouses. Rabbi Goldstein is the director of Shulchanaruchharav.com, the world’s leading web-based Halacha database, and is the director of the Home Study Semicha Program, a self-study web-based Semicha program. He is a prolific author of over 50 Sefarim studied by a wide range of readers throughout the world, which is used regularly in Semicha programs around the globe. He is a world renowned Posek, answering questions to a web-based market, and serves as a local Posek, Rav, and Lecturer, in the Tzemach Tzedek community Shul in Tzefas, Israel. His many classes can be heard both from his website, Vimeo and YouTube channel. Students can join live to classes given in the Tzemach Tzedek Shul, through the “בית חבד צפת Chabad Tsfat” YouTube channel.

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