אלישע הנביא

When Elijah sought an heir, he found a young farmer plowing his field with twelve yoke of oxen. He cast his mantle upon him, and Elisha at once left the plow, slaughtered his oxen and shared them with the people, and went to serve him (I Kings 19). So a disciple begins: with a complete leaving of yesterday.

Before Elijah ascended in the whirlwind, he asked Elisha what he could grant him, and Elisha asked for 'a double portion of your spirit' (II Kings 2). When he saw his master rise, he tore his clothes, lifted the mantle of Elijah that had fallen, and split the Jordan with it. The disciple continued the master, and even doubled him.

If Elijah was the prophet of fire and zeal, Elisha was the prophet of kindness and life. He worked many everyday miracles for simple people: for a poor widow he filled all her vessels with oil and saved her from her creditors (II Kings 4), and to the Shunammite woman who hosted him he gave a son, and when the boy died, he restored him to life.

His kindness reached even beyond the borders of Israel: Naaman, the Aramean army commander, a leper, was healed by immersing seven times in the Jordan at Elisha's word (II Kings 5), and learned that greatness is measured by humility. And even an axe that fell into the water floated up at his word (II Kings 6), for the distress of a poor student was not small in his eyes.

Elisha is the figure of the perfect disciple who becomes a master, and the proof that the spirit of prophecy passes from generation to generation. From him we learned that spiritual heroism is not only on Mount Carmel before the multitudes, but also in a small widow's house, in restoring hope to a single person.