Rebbetzin Chava Kuperman
She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness...
This refers to the wife of Obadiah, who was in charge of the royal household under King Ahab. Though an Edomite, Obadiah preserved his righteous soul, converted to Judaism, and saved a hundred prophets from death, among them the prophet Elisha. (His wife supported him in everything. We wrote about this in detail in one of our previous articles.) Why is Obadiah's wife described as “watching over the affairs of her household”?
Because she cannot allow her children to become slaves in the household of an unrighteous king. Let us recall: widowed and left without any means of support, this woman cannot repay her husband's debts (incurred to save the prophets). Her children are in danger—they will be made slaves in the royal household to settle their father's debts. She rushes to the prophet Elisha and begs him to pray and ask G-d: let her become financially independent; let her be able to “not eat unearned bread.”
Then Elisha performs a double miracle for her, or, as it is also called, a “miracle within a miracle.”
First, oil is found in the widow's house, and second, this oil gains the ability never to run out.
The verse quoted above also has a broader interpretation. A truly righteous wife runs her household so that everyone does what needs to be done. And if someone does not do something, she does it for them. (If one person ran out of time, another left something unfinished or spoiled it, the mother, the mistress of the house, puts everything right and in order.)
Her sons praise her, and her husband extols her...
When translating this verse from Hebrew, either the word “praise” or the word “affirm” can be used.
Parents' qualities manifest themselves (are affirmed) in their children.
It is thought that if the children are good, the father deserves the credit; if they are bad, the mother has fallen short (as Solomon says in several places in the Book of Proverbs: “A wise son gladdens his father; a fool is his mother's sorrow”). Children are quicker to perceive and notice their mother's virtues and strengths; the last person to recognize her contribution to their upbringing is her husband. And this is very much as it should be. For in matters of child-rearing, the mother has to gently manipulate her husband, doing so in a way that he does not notice.
The Almighty created us to be manipulative. But if a woman manipulates for her own sake, that is not good; such a woman is generally disliked. When she does it for the sake of others, however, it is wonderful.
According to another interpretation, this refers to the Shunammite woman, about whom we have also already written in detail.
She understood the prophet Elisha better than her husband did, realizing that Elisha was a righteous man when she noticed that not a single fly flew over him as he ate; it was she who persuaded her husband to build an addition to their home especially for the prophet Elisha, knowing that anyone who uses their own property to give a sage food, water, and shelter is like someone who offers sacrifices to G-d every day. And though she was childless, she experienced a miracle: a son was born to her, and when he died, Elisha revived him—“the son arose.”
It is believed that it was precisely because of the Shunammite woman's merit that the Almighty answered the mortally ill King Hezekiah and sent healing when he prayed: “You revived the son of a woman who built a house for Your prophet. Yet my ancestor, King Solomon, built a House for You Yourself!”
To be continued