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Elijah

What Is a Nazir, and Why the Wild Hair?

Like many prophets, a nazirite once characterized holy people living on the periphery of society, with wild flowing hair to mark their separate status. Some were divine messengers, like the prophets Elijah and Samuel. Others were warriors, like Samson, a wild-man warrior reminiscent of the Sumerian hero Enkidu. The priestly legislation neutralizes the nazir, making the hair itself the focus.

Dr.

Richard Lederman

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Was Elijah Permitted to Make an Offering on Mount Carmel?

In a contest with the prophets of Baal, Elijah rebuilds an altar to YHWH that was on Mount Carmel and makes an offering. Later, he bemoans the destruction of other YHWH altars (1 Kgs 18–19). But doesn’t the Book of Kings clearly state that only the altar in Jerusalem was legitimate once Solomon built the Temple?

Dr.

David Glatt-Gilad

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Shavuot: Why Doesn’t the Torah Celebrate the Revelation on Mt. Sinai?

Inaugurating TheTorah.com

Rabbi

David D. Steinberg

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Can Elijah Reconcile Fathers and Sons?

Biblical tradition often depicts difficult father and son relationships. Accordingly, the concluding verses of Malachi—the final book of the Prophets—imagines ultimate redemption through a metaphor of father-son reconciliation, in which the fire and brimstone prophet Elijah is its unlikely harbinger. Leave it to the poet Yehuda Amichai to step in and offer a counter-model to rescue the metaphor.

Prof. Rabbi

Wendy Zierler

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Is Elijah Pinchas?

Elijah the prophet is immortal, and Pinchas appears in a story long after the wilderness period. Both figures are described as zealots, leading to their identification as the same person by Pseudo-Philo (ca. 1st cent. C.E.) and later midrash. In a heated exchange preserved in a 13th-century fragment from the Cairo Genizah, two cantors and a congregant debate the rationality of this identification.

Dr.

Moshe Lavee

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Moshe Rabbeinu Never Died: The Hidden Ending

Rabbi

Eric Grossman

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