[Avodah] true navi/false navi

[Simi Peters via Avodah]

R' Eli Turkel wrote:

Yirrmayahu haNavi prophesizes that Nevuchadnezzar and his son/grandson will
rule over Judea.  Chananiah announces that within 2 years G-d will destroy
the Babylonian empire.

 

I would imagine that Chananih looked like a very pious individual. How was a
Jew at that time to decide between the two opposing sides? Today with
hindsight we know that Yirmiyahu was the true prophet and Chananiah was the
navi sheker.

However, at the time both sides seem to be legitimate

 

My 2 cents:

As a rule, nevi'ei emet  generally told people things they did not want to
hear, while nevi'ei sheker tended to say things that made everyone,
especially the powers that be, comfortable.  

 

Case in point:  Yehoshafat has two reasons to suspect that Ah'av's neviim
are lying (Melakhim Alef, Perek 22):  

First, they are all saying, en masse, exactly the same thing, which means
that they rehearsed it.  (Ein shnei nevi'im mitnab'im besafa ahat.  Or maybe
it is 'lashon ehad'.  I may not have the exact lashon here.  Corrections
welcome.)  

Second, they are telling Ah'av exactly what he wants to hear, which is not
what Yehoshafat-who is a tzadik, despite his mistaken alliance with
Ah'av-expects from a navi Hashem.  Ah'av himself says that he doesn't like
to ask Mikhayhu ben Yimla anything because he always prophesies badly and
never says anything good.  (Check out the perek; the street theater aspects
are almost comical.)

 

I've been asked the same question by many students over the years:  How
could people worship idols/sin/doubt Hashem (pick your variation) when they
had nevi'im?  The subtext is something like:  We, nebbach, don't have access
to revelation/truth/God (again, pick your variation), so we can't help
ourselves, but our ancestors had miracles, prophets, etc.  The short answer
is something like what R' Eli has said:  Where there are true prophets (the
real deal), there's a profitable marketplace for false prophets (the
comfortable lie).  (Sorry, just noticed the pun.)  Determining what is
genuine requires real spiritual work, self-awareness, and introspection.
The fact that there were prophets in bayit rishon did not remove the fact
that there was also, as always, behira hofshit.

 

Kol tuv,

Simi Peters

 

 



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