Prophecy: What is it, Who gets it, and do The Simpsons have it?

The Simpsons has predicted the future multiple times. They predicted a Trump presidency in the year 2000. They predicted the annoying autocorrect feature we’d all struggle with back in 1994. They even predicted a 2003 tiger attack that savaged Vegas magicians Siegfried and Roy 10 years before it happened. It’s indisputable. The writers of The Simpsons are prophets.

Okay, not really. Yes, you’ll find articles with scores of jokes that somewhat parallel something that eventually happened in real life. But the show’s been on for 35+ years with almost 800 episodes. Of course the comedy writers are going to tap into the cultural zeitgeist and make some predictions that inevitably will hit close to home. But that Trump prediction is still pretty eerie. That being said, this week’s Parsha Behaalosecha has some troubling instances of prophecy. And they aren’t all celebrated as an episode of The Simpsons.

“I alone can not carry this entire people for they are too burdensome for me, please kill me, if I have found favor in Your eyes; so that I will not see [their] evil.” (Bamidbar 11:14-15)

Moses needed help. His leadership had reached a breaking point. So Hashem instructed him to find 70 men who become elevated with the gift of prophecy. But unexpectedly, two others, Eldad and Meidad, are found to be prophesying in the camp. Joshua, Moses’ loyal attendant was outraged, “My master Moses, destroy them!” to which Moses responds, “Are you vengeful for me? Would it be that all of Hashem’s people were prophets, that Hashem would give His Spirit upon them.” (Bamidbar 11:28-29) Why was Joshua so upset about Eldad and Meidad?

Towards the end of the parsha there’s an incident where Miriam speaks ill about Moses (aka lashon hara) to Aharon.

Miriam and Aharon spoke about Moses concerning the Cushite woman [Tzipporah] that he married… They said, “Is it only to Moses that Hashem has spoken? Did He not also speak with us?” And Hashem heard. The man, Moses, was most humble, more so than any other person on the face of the Earth… [Hashem] said, “Please listen to My words. If there will be a prophet among you, Hashem will make Myself known to him in a vision; in a dream I will speak to him. That is not the case with My servant, Moses. In My entire house he is trusted. Mouth to mouth I speak to him, in a vision, not in riddles, he gazes at the likeness of Hashem, so why are you not afraid to speak [ill] about My servant, about Moses? (Bamidbar 12:1-8)

What did Miriam say to Aharon that was so bad about Moses and his wife? What did that have to do with the fact that Miriam and Aharon also experience prophecy? And why was Hashem’s answer that Moses was very humble?

As usual, the Midrash fills in a lot of the missing pieces. According to Rabbi Noson in Midrash Tanchuma, Tzav, 13, during the scene when Joshua told Moses about Eldad and Meidad, Tzipporah and Miriam were present. Upon hearing the news, Tzipporah remarked, “Woe to their wives if they become attached to prophecy because they will separate from their wives the way my husband separated from me.” It seems that after going up on Mount Sinai, Moses never returned to his marital bed with Tzipporah, and she wasn’t happy about it. Upon hearing this, Miriam’s response was to tell her brother Aharon, “We’re both prophets and we don’t separate from our spouses. Why is Moses doing this to his wife?”

Before I try to explain Joshua’s anger and Miriam’s dissatisfaction with her brother, let’s understand a little of what prophecy is.

In the Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah: Chapter 7, Rambam defines prophecy as God directly communicating with man. However, in order to receive prophecy, the individual has some prerequisites. They must be strong, rich, wise, and humble. Strong: not in the weight-lifting sense, but the ability to overcome their base/emotional inclinations at all times. Rich: not talking about money, but as said in Pirkei Avos, “Who is rich? One who is satisfied with their portion.” Wise: not just being smart, but understanding the realities of how to live a good life. Humble: I’m going to come back to this one. Once someone has all of these qualities, they are able to receive an understanding of reality beyond their normal thinking process.

Normally, prophecy is received through a highly metaphoric image bestowed in a dreamlike state. The prophet alone knows the correct interpretation but sometimes the message can be cloudy. The prophet doesn’t get to choose when these dreams happen and they must be in a state of happiness. After Jacob believed Joseph was dead, he didn’t experience prophecy for over 20 years. However, as the verse from Behaalosecha says, Moses experienced prophecy very differently. “Whenever [Moses] desired, the holy spirit would envelop him… He did not have to concentrate his attention to prepare…because he was always concentrated, prepared, and ready as the angels are.” (Hlichot Yesodei Hatorah: 7:6)

Clearly, the honor of prophecy is not to be taken lightly. If there’s such a thing as classified information, the secrets of the universe and the visions of things to come would certainly qualify. This might be why Joshua was so incensed by Eldad and Meidad’s unsanctioned prophecy. Especially, when the Midrash says that what Eldad and Meidad were predicting was that Moses wouldn’t be entering the land of Israel. How did Moses react to this projection? He welcomed it because he realized it’s not about him. And that’s the very reason why Moses could achieve this higher level above all the other prophets.

Moses is praised by Hashem as being the most humble person on the face of the Earth. As the old joke goes, a rabbi prostrated himself in the synagogue during the High Holy Days and cried, “Oh, Lord, before you I am nothing!” The cantor likewise prostrated himself and cried, “Oh, Lord, before you I am nothing!” The janitor, watching from the back of the synagogue, gets caught up in the fervor of the moment and joined in. “Oh, Lord,” he cries, “before you I am nothing!” The rabbi, taking note of this, nudged the cantor and whispered, “Look who thinks he’s nothing!” But actually humility isn’t about thinking you’re nothing. It is essential a humble person recognizes their strengths and celebrates them. Celebrates their gifts… not themselves for having the gifts. That’s the critical difference.

Understanding that you have an important role to play in something greater than yourself is what humility is all about. Seeing the big picture. Well… what’s prophecy other than seeing the biggest picture of all? Moses could flip on his prophecy like a light switch because his ego was so removed from his perspective. His relations with Tzipporah weren’t wrong, Judaism doesn’t condemn sex and it doesn’t even mandate it is only for procreation. But sex is a powerful drive that can get in the way. Tzipporah married a great and dedicated man. Unfortunately, sometimes great and dedicated men aren’t always able to be emotionally available. Moses had to serve something even bigger than their union.

We don’t have prophecy available to us today. That ended sometime before the destruction of the Second Temple. Sorry Simpsons fans. But at the same time art, music, and poetry seem to come from a source that is beyond us. The Matrix predicted a virtual existence that seems right around the corner. There are two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation from the early 90s that are getting a lot of attention today as they seem to model the relationships people are starting to develop with their AI companions. And 2006’s Idiocracy feels like an inevitability at this point. Are these obvious conclusions one can draw from the zeitgeist and looking at the direction of things around them? Or are we able to tap into some Divine inspiration on some level? I don’t know. But what I do know if we can move our egos: our agendas, our fears, our assumptions, out of the way, we can see more clearly the broad picture of what is ahead of us.

This is from my weekly Torah Blog.

posted 3 days ago

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