GENERAL INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS

In introducing our study of the Book of Shmuel, a few points of interest are worth considering. First, R. Yaakov Medan pointed out (among others, but it was in an article of his that I saw the point made) that the Book of Shmuel contrasts remarkably both with the one before it and the one after it, in ways that make us wonder why it is a separate book at all. First, while the period of the Judges and the kings lasted several hundred years, all the events of the 2 books of Shmuel take place over the course of approximately 92 years (Shmuel lives for 52 years, in Hazal’s chronology, and then David rules for forty years).

Aside from the difference in length of time covered by the book, the topic matter of Shmuel would seem split between the subjects of Judges and Kings. Eli, who we see at the beginning of the book, and Shmuel seem to both have served as judges, while Shaul and David undeniably serve as kings—so why wasn’t the book split up among those other two books?

We will not attempt to answer these questions here, but will keep them in mind as we study the book, as those kinds of questions will productively focus our analysis on a few central issues. In addition, we will consistently try to understand why each particular event is presented in the book—some, of course, will be obvious and we will not belabor those; but other events recorded by the book seem either unimportant or repetitive, and we will reap great benefits by working on understanding their place in the book. In fact, the first chapters of the book already force this kind of questioning, since it is not clear why we need all this information.

THE EVENTS OF THE CHAPTER-- A BRIEF REVIEW

As the first chapter of Shmuel informs us—a brief summary of the events, with our discussion to follow-- a man named Elkanah had two wives, Peninah and Hannah, the latter of whom was childless. Elkanah had a general custom of going to Shiloh (where the Mishkan, the precursor of the Bet haMikdash, was then located) once a year to offer sacrifices to God. Despite Elkanah’s great love for, and attempts to comfort, Hannah, her co-wife’s taunting along with her own sorrow finally brought her to a crisis point. Bitter at heart, she went to the Mishkan, and prayed to God for a child, promising that the child would be given to God all his life.

Contrary to common practice, Hannah prayed silently, and used an unusual form of address, Hashem Tseva’ot, Lord of Hosts. Eli, seeing her unusual prayers, decided she was drunk and rebuked her for doing that; she, insulted by his assumption, corrects him, and elicits a blessing from him that her prayers be answered.

Soon after, Shmuel is born; the next time that Elkanah goes up to the Mishkan, Hannah decides to stay home with Shmuel until he is weaned; two years later, she brings him to the Mishkan, brings him to Eli, says that this is the boy she had prayed for, and informs Eli that this boy is shaul la-Shem, is loaned to God, all the days of his life.

There are three distinct parts—perhaps four-- to this chapter. We first have the story of the Elkanah family, the dynamics of which eventually led to Hannah’s approaching God with her prayer. We then have the events of the prayer, including her interaction with Elkanah. Finally, we have the birth of Shmuel, his weaning, and being brought to the Mishkan (including her return conversation with Elkanah). Let’s take each part separately.

THE ELKANAH FAMILY

A first question worth considering is why this part of the story appears at all. Even were we to grant that certain human elements entered into Shmuel’s writing of his sefer—a problematic claim, since it became a sefer in Tanakh, which implies that it was written bi-nevuah, rather than just being Shmuel’s memoirs (I wonder what advance fee a navi could get for his memoirs nowadays)—why would Shmuel think it was important to include the pre-story of his birth?

I believe the answer lies in a phenomenon we won’t see until a few perakim from now, but which is already applicable. When Shmuel first becomes a navi, in chapter 3, the sefer notes that devar Hashem, the Word of God, was yakar, was rare in those days. The atmosphere of the Jewish people, in other words, lacked the presence of God’s Word, as a directly experienced reality. To some extent, Shmuel’s becoming a navi will be a first step in changing that, as we will see in the coming chapters.

Given that context, it makes sense to note the presence of God within the Elkanah family. Elkanah makes sure to make a pilgrimage yearly to the Mishkan, a clear awareness of God’s affect on the goodness of his life. Hannah’s co-wife, Peninah, teases Hannah, which the midrash presents in two different ways. One strand of midrash sees her as teasing Hannah out of cruelty, while the other sees her as trying to spur Hannah to asking God for help.

The first version would provide Peninah as a foil; her willingness to tease Hannah means that she sees her children as "natural," with no concept of God providing children. The second version would increase our awareness of how God played a deeper role in the entire Elkanah family than in the rest of the Jewish people; it would help us understand why it would be that Shmuel would be born to this particular family. The first verses, then, are there to help us understand Shmuel’s family background, perhaps particularly in terms of its relationship to God.

THE PRAYER AND CONVERSATION WITH ELI

Driven by various factors, Hannah comes to the Mishkan to pray to God, itself an unusual choice, one that bodes well for this woman as being the mother of a future prophet. As David haMelekh says in Tehillim, "Shelah el Hashem Yehavekha, ve-hu yekhalkelekha, put your load on the Lord, and He will support you." So Hannah comes to the Mishkan, and in the opinion of Hazal, she is the first to use the title Hashem Tseva'ot, Lord of Hosts.

Rashi also notes that Eli mistook her for a drunkard because she prayed silently, contrary to the usual practice of praying out loud. And yet Hazal ratify Hannah's practice of praying silently (they use Hannah's prayer to teach several aspects of how we daven our Amidah-prayer). Those two elements of this prayer provide a powerful reminder of the possibility of innovating within the tradition, of offering new forms of approaching God that are unsullied by improper motives and can not only be tolerated by the religion, but can fruitfully expand its understanding of a relationship with the Creator.

Another interesting element of this prayer is that most of it is apparently not recordedby the Navi--the recorded prayer is one sentence, which the navi both precedes and follows with comments about how much she prayed. Before the prayer, the navi notes that she prayed and cried; afterwards, it says that as she prayed a great deal, Eli watched her mouth. We are supposed to understand that Hannah prayed at length, pouring out the bitterness of her heart to God, although only one part of it was necessary for Scripture to record verbatim. That in itself might be teaching us an important lesson about prayer: we might work on a prayer for a while, and only after immersing ourselves in the experience do we finally hit the spot, get just the right words and feelings out of our mouths. The rest of the prayer was less important for itself than for helping us reach that point.

SHMUEL A NAZIR?

Moving on to what Hannah actually said, there is a debate in the Mishnah as to whether Hannah promised that Shmuel would be a nazir or not. She does say she will give the child to God, and morah lo ya`aleh `al rosho. That Hebrew can either mean a razor will not go over his head (which would mean he will never cut his hair, like a nazir) or fear will never come on his head, meaning that he will not be afraid of other people. If it means the latter, of course, it sends a powerful message about the qualities that are necessary for a servant of God; while Hannah cannot know that Shmuel would be a navi, she seems to be saying that in offering the child to God for lifelong service, she promises to train him not to fear people, since that is a barrier to his job.

Having raised the issue of her offer, it seems worth pondering what kind of a mother Hannah was-- a question we will confront later in the navi as well. While we all

instinctively understand the desire to have children (particularly, I suppose, for women in that time and place, although infertility is still a tragedy for women in our so-much-more-liberated society as well), we generally assume that that is out of a desire to have and to raise them, to experience them in our lives, to watch them follow (or reject) our paths, to provide us with grandchildren, to form a chain in the progression of our families.

Hannah's interest in a child, but willingness to simply give him up, seems at first blush to take a more genetic attitude to her desire for children. She wants her womb used, and doesn’t care what happens to the child afterwards. Of course, another perspective on this prayer is that Hannah understands that the most successful prayer is the one that manages to identify a "need" of God's, that is, a goal that is not only a personal one, but one that God would also value. In this case, Hannah might have realized that having a person whose life was fully dedicated to God was just what the Jewish people needed right then; if so, her commitment to producing such a child would serve as powerful factor militating on behalf of her receiving a child.

Her actions after the birth of Shmuel show that she was not simply concerned with having produced a child out of her womb. She keeps Shmuel with her for two years, not because she can't bear to be parted from him, but because she realizes that he needs to be prepared for his lifelong task. Her weaning him will give her time to set the foundations for his later life. We will see more of her impact in a later chapter.

Additional proof of Hannah's continuing concern with Shmuel, even in this chapter, comes from Eli's deferring to her as to how to handle the child. Eli thinks, on his next trip to the Mishkan, that they will bring the baby along. Hannah informs him that she’s staying home, and Eli says she should do as she sees fit. It is not, then, that Hannah is simply relishing her time with Shmuel; she has made a conscious parenting decision, and is seeing it through to its conclusion.

FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION

This is as far as I will take this chapter of the book on our current reading of it. I will, however, offer other issues you might choose to consider: 1) In Hannah’s first interaction with Eli, he assumes she’s drunk—was that the most logical conclusion? If it was, what does that say about the frequency of people sincerely praying to God, in Eli’s experience? 2) Hannah corrects him, which Hazal see as part of our requirement to respond to false accusations—that we should not just ignore people who think ill of us, but should point out to them (to the extent that they share their perspective with us) that they are in error. Does that statement of Hazal’s assume any particular version of how community works, of how we are supposed to conceive of the role of others in our social lives? 3) When Eli realizes that he has falsely accused Hannah, he gives her a berakhah; what does that say about his willingness to be proved wrong, and his reaction to that experience? 4) When Hannah returns to Eli, she says el hana`ar hazeh hitpalalti, I have prayed for this boy; what does it mean for a child to know that he/she is the answer to his/her parent’s dreams and prayers?