Despite their common training, prophets weren’t all alike, of course. But the difference between them didn’t lie in the fact that some were “better students” than the others and thus did better than they. It was far more than that. For prophecy wasn’t a skill so much as the fulfillment of one’s own full being as well as of the human potential. The difference between them lied in the subtle distinctions between each prophet’s makeup.

As such, some prophets were able to prophesy more often than others, for example (indeed, some only prophesied once or twice in their lives, in fact), which said something about them. Others, though, were able to draw upon a far deeper and wide-ranging closeness to G-d than others and had fuller, more wide-ranging prophecies, which spoke about the profundity of their all-important relationship to Him.

For while indeed all prophets had a relationship with G-d beyond the ordinary that was rooted in a spiritual quest of theirs, the profundity of their encounter with Him in prophecy varied from one to the other.

This series is dedicated to the memory of Yitzchak Hehrsh ben Daniel, and Sarah Rivka bas Yaakov Dovid.

Copyright © 2004 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

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