Rebbetzin Chava Kuperman
Readers will remember that the Shunammite woman does not like miracles, because she understands that a miracle is temporary; a miracle is not the norm.
What is obtained through a miracle will later disappear, because nature will return to a stable state and the natural course of events will resume.
So the Shunammite woman approaches the place where she expects to meet the prophet Elisha. Elisha sees her from afar and tells his servant Gehazi to go and ask, "Is all well with her? Is all well with her husband? Is all well with their child?" ("Has something happened to one of them?")
When Gehazi asks, she answers, "All is well!"—because she has no intention of telling him anything. She needs Elisha, and when she comes near, she falls at his feet. Gehazi pushes her away from the prophet. Yes, he is carrying out his duties, but in fact he is behaving without the proper restraint and modesty. The Shunammite woman is so beautiful… And he so longs to touch that beauty (on any pretext).
She pays no attention to the servant.
Elisha stops his servant: "Do not touch the woman," the prophet orders. "Leave her alone. Her soul is in anguish. And the Almighty has hidden it from me."
"I did not ask you for a child," the Shunammite woman sobs to Elisha. "I only asked you not to give me false hope!"
Then Elisha hands Gehazi his staff and sends him to Shunem. He sternly orders him not to speak to anyone along the way, not to greet anyone, and not even to return a greeting. Upon arriving at the house, the servant is to place the staff on the boy so that he will come back to life. The servant leaves. But the Shunammite woman insists that the prophet go to Shunem. She says she will not leave him alone until he himself goes to her child.
Soon, however, her pleading is no longer needed. Gehazi returns. He reports that he did everything as he was told, but the staff laid on the child's body had no effect: the child made no sound and did not even draw a breath.
(There are two accounts of why the attempt to revive him failed. The first: on his way to Shunem, the servant disobeyed the command to remain silent; on the contrary, he boasted to everyone he met that he held Elisha's miraculous staff in his hands and was now hurrying to revive a dead child. By thus "exposing" what had happened, he caused the miracle not to take place. The second explanation: Gehazi came across a dead dog on the road. He decided to test how the staff worked. He brought it back to life, thereby wasting its power of revival).
It turns out that Elisha must go to Shunem himself. And, of course, he goes. Going up to the room where the boy is lying, he closes the door behind him and begins praying to the Almighty, then lies down on the child, warming him, gets up, prays again, lies down again—and repeats this 7 times. When the child wakes up, Elisha calls Gehazi and tells him to summon the mother. She enters, sees her son alive, and falls prostrate...
But the Shunammite woman's story does not end here.
to be continued