The Era of the Prophets

Just as Moshe Rabbeinu, in his time, judged Klal Yisrael and taught each individual his own unique way [to approach life and the Torah], so too was the way of the navi, the prophet. The Gra says that the prophet would tell each and every person his deficiency and its correction. The generations in which the prophets lived were very different from that of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe’s generation recognized the spirit of the Torah, and everyone wanted Moshe and the officers whom he appointed to teach them what the Torah wanted of them. It was not so in the generations of the prophets, when people existed who did not have an elevated recognition and who thought it was all right to sometimes call a prophet a “meshuga, a crazy person who is living in air” (Hoshea 9:7).

Indeed, there were those who despised learning from the navi. Nevertheless, this does not mean there were only a few “higher” people. If a person wanted to learn, the navi would teach him the derech Hashem with a clear understanding. It was so clear to them that it could straighten out their own krumkeit, the crookedness in their hearts. What they saw was physically real. The prophets had the power to take a person away from apikorsus and the person would not die. Chazal said, “If someone does repentance for heresy, if he does real teshuvah, he would have to die” (Avodah Zarah 17). Sensory recognition draws him away from the Ribbono shel Olam, and therefore, he has to go stubbornly against his nature to return to the Ribbono shel Olam. Since he has to turn against his will, against his deepest feelings, he has to die.

THE BAAL-WORSHIPERS whom Eliyahu HaNavi brought back to Hashem, and who all yelled out “Hashem is the G-d” (I Melachim 18:39)—did not die. Why? Because they did not have to be so stubborn to do teshuvah. The navi showed them with such a strong, clear, and palpable understanding that everyone could see it exactly the way it was. Therefore, they would separate themselves from their nature and mistakes, and return because of their love of truth. That is why they remained alive. When Chagai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the last of the prophets, died, ruach hakodesh ceased—the ruach hakodesh by which each person attained understanding of what he lacked and how to remediate it, with a real recognition and love of the truth. That was the beginning of the Period of the Yeshivos.