Shomron: the City that Pretended to be Yerushalayim

This week’s Haftorah retells the dramatic story of Aram’s siege of Shomron during the reign of King Yehoram. Yerhoram, son of Achav, was a wicked king of Malchut Yisrael. As Aram tightened its grip around the capital, the people experienced devastating famine. Elisha HaNavi reassured Yehoram that salvation would arrive in an instant: food prices would plummet and the city would be saved. 

Sure enough, four metzorayim were dwelling outside Shomron’s walls. Chazal identify them as Geichazi and his three sons (stricken with tzara’at in the preceding narratives of Melachim). They decide to surrender to the Aramean camp, hoping at least to be fed. 

Instead, they find it completely abandoned. Miraculously, Hashem caused the Arameans to hear what they believed was the advance of a massive Egyptian-Hittite force. They fled in panic, leaving behind a camp fully stocked with food and valuables. As the people pour out of the city to plunder the abandoned camp, Elisha’s nevuah is fulfilled. 

It is a powerful story. But there is a basic, fundamental problem with the narrative. The Navi tells us that Geichazi and his sons were dwelling outside the city. Rashi explains (Melachim Bet 7:3) that this fulfilled the biblical requirement that metzorayim dwell מחוץ למחנה – outside walled cities.

However, Rebbe Akiva Eiger notes that this seems to contradict the halachik requirements recorded by Toras Kohanim and the Mishnah in Keilim (Tosafot Rebbe Akiva Eiger to Keilim 1:8). Chazal explain that מחוץ למחנה applies specifically to sanctified cities like Yerushalayim that are surrounded by walls from the time of Yehoshua’s conquest. The city of Shomron was built by Yehoram’s grandfather, Omri, long after the times of Yehoshua. Hence, this city was secular and unsanctified! Why is Rashi saying that these metzorayim were expelled under a bibilical mandate that seemingly did not apply?

Rav Yaakov Ettlinger (in Binyan Tzion 60) offers a striking answer: their expulsion wasn’t a function of what Shomron was, but rather what it was pretending to be. Chazal explain that Omri built this city to rival Yerushalayim. Just as the king of Yehuda had Yerushalayim, the kings of Yisrael would have their own glorious capital. In an attempt to surpass and outshine the holy city, Omri built a massive walled metropolis that would become a shining alternative. But architectural grandeur was not enough. Shomron had to project sanctity as well. If metzorayim were cast out of Yerushalayim, they would be expelled from Shomron as well.

Hence, Geichazi and his sons were thrown out of Yerushalayim as an expression of the malchei Yisrael’s vain attempts to supplant Yerushalayim as the spiritual center of Klal Yisrael. 

An astounding point emerges. What set Elisha’s prophecies of redemption in motion? First, its agents were deeply flawed individuals. Geichazi is counted by Chazal among the select few wicked individuals who 

forfeited their portion in the World to Come (Sanhedrin 90a). Yet, this abandoned servant of Elisha became the unlikely vehicle through which his former master’s prophecy would be realized. 

Even more striking: it was Omri’s arrogance and his attempts to replace Yerushalayim that placed Geichazi in precisely the right place at the right time. Despite his corrupt intentions, that very project became the mechanism for the salvation of his grandson’s kingdom. 

Flawed individuals, yet Divine messengers. Even when they abandon the sanctity of Yerushalayim, they remain instruments of Hashem’s plan. Ironically, their effort to supplant the holy city and its Torah may itself become bring about their redemption.  

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