Year 3040 from the creation of the world.

The day began as usual. The sun scorched the earth, parched from long years of drought, and the cattle lowed, searching for water. The people stood helpless in the fields, lifting their voices in prayer for rain, when the ground trembled from the hooves of a galloping horse.

“The word of Queen Izevel, wife of King Achav!” proclaimed the horseman, and he jumped from his horse into the city’s bustling square, reading the words of the letter in his hand: “By order of the queen, all the neviim of Hashem are sentenced to death!”

Silence spread through the crowd; it seemed that even nature halted its course. Could it be? Would Izevel, the wife of the king of Israel, dare to cold-bloodedly murder the righteous emissaries of Hashem?

The public did not dare protest or rebel against the decree, out of fear of Achav and Izevel. Those who sought Hashem were forced to hide, to flee from the king’s soldiers; no one spoke for them.

In Achav’s palace, the Edomi ger tzedek Ovadiah, who managed the royal house’s finances, sat in horror. He was a G-d-fearing, devoted disciple of the navi Eliyahu.

“These are difficult, complex days,” he murmured, covering his face with his palms. “The prophets cannot place their trust in relatives and neighbors who may betray them, and I — where do I come into this? How can I witness the evil befalling my brothers, the prophets?”

After deep thought, he decided to take action. “I will prepare two large caves, and I will smuggle fifty neviim into each one. If the prophets hiding in one cave are caught, they can escape to the second.”

He hurried to his wife to share his dangerous plan.

“The vision of Ovadiah: Thus said Hashem to Edom… Rabbi Yitzchak said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Let Ovadiah, who lived between two wicked ones and did not learn from their deeds, come and prophesy about Eisav the wicked, who lived between two righteous ones and did not learn from their deeds” (Sanhedrin 39b).

“MY husband, Ovadiah,” began his righteous wife, “saving the neviim is a worthy deed. But tell me, who will provide for them while they are in the cave?”

“I will do it,” Ovadiah replied simply. “I hold a high position and I have great wealth.”

“But there’s been a terrible drought,” his wife reminded him. “The heavens have not poured rain upon the earth and the produce has withered. We are struggling to provide food and water for our household. How will we be able to support our two children and also one hundred prophets?”

“Nevertheless, we must do so,” ruled Ovadiah, and his devoted wife agreed.

Since she allowed her husband to save the prophets, despite knowing that she was inflicting a life of poverty on herself and her sons, the Holy One, blessed be He, considered this as a great sacrifice for Heaven.

For years, Ovadiah risked his life. Every day he brought the prophets water and food. Not only that — he even saw to it that each cave would have oil lamps burning so the prophets would have light in the darkness.

“Rabbi Yitzchak said: For what reason did Ovadiah merit prophecy? Because he hid one hundred prophets in a cave. As it is said: ‘And it was when Izevel cut off the prophets of Hashem, that Ovadiah took one hundred prophets and hid them, fifty men in a cave…’ Why specifically fifty men? Rabbi Elazar said: He learned from Yaakov, as it is said: ‘And the camp that is left shall survive’ ” (Sanhedrin 39b).

One day, Ovadiah returned home to a despondent wife.

“My husband Ovadiah, our great wealth is gone,” she told him with deep sorrow. “Our house is empty of food and coins. How will we be able to keep the prophets alive?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t send them away empty-handed,” said Ovadiah. “I will find money from another source.”

“Find money? During a severe drought? Who will agree to lend you money?”

“I will ask Yehoram,” suggested Ovadiah.

“Yehoram?!” Ovadiah’s wife’s eyes widened in astonishment. “The son of King Achav?! He is wicked and greedy, and he lends money only with cruel levels of interest.”

“It’s true, borrowing money with interest is forbidden by law,” agreed Ovadiah. “But this is pikuach nefesh. If we do not give refuge to the prophets, Izevel will kill them. I must borrow money with interest for them.”

“Perhaps you could bring food for the prophets from the royal kitchens,” suggested the wife of Ovadiah.

He shook his head. “Achav is wicked, and he is willing to resort to theft. The servants of Hashem can’t receive their food from stolen property.”

The righteous wife of Ovadiah agreed that her husband ask Yehoram for a loan instead; that money bought bread and water to keep the Torah scholars alive.

In the meantime, King Achav died and his son Yehoram was appointed in his stead. Ovadiah, too, was taken to his eternal home. He left behind his widow, burdened with two sons and enormous debts weighing upon her shoulders.

“‘And a certain woman from among the wives of the sons of the prophets’ — when the Holy One, blessed be He, created His world and wished to create Chava, He saw that the daughters of the generation of the flood were destined to come from her and lead His children to sin, and again He saw that righteous women would come from her — Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, and Leah — and again He saw that Izevel would come from her and cause her husband to sin, and again He saw the wife of Ovadiah the prophet, who was destined to support the prophets. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: I am not creating Chava, who is called ‘one,’ as it is said: ‘And He took one of his ribs,’ except for the sake of the wife of Ovadiah, who is called ‘one,’ as it is said: ‘And a certain woman (ishah achas)’ ” (Otzar HaMidrashim).

Loud, harsh knocks shook the door of the wife of Ovadiah’s dilapidated house.

“Open the door!” a voice thundered. A deep pallor rose in the face of Ovadiah’s wife when she saw the visitor.

“The king… King Yehoram,” she choked out. “How can I fulfill your wish?”

“By returning the huge debt that your husband borrowed from me!” shouted Yehoram. “What do you think, woman?! That I do not know why your husband borrowed the money? The secret of Ovadiah is public knowledge! Everyone knows about the hundred prophets he hid in the caves. Only the money interests me, so I turned a blind eye to his actions. But the time for repayment has passed and the interest rises every day.”

“My husband is dead,” replied the wife of Ovadiah, “and as you can see, the house is empty. I have no assets to sell, and I don’t see how I can repay the debt.”

“No assets?” snarled Yehoram. His eyes went dark. “You have two sons, do you not?”

“My sons?!” cried the wife of Ovadiah, fists clenching in anger. “What have you to do with my sons?”

“In exchange for the debt,” pronounced Yehoram, “they shall be my slaves!”

“But Your Majesty!” the wife of Ovadiah pleaded, “Torah law forbids selling a person in exchange for a debt.”

“I am king, and a king does whatever he wishes,” chuckled Yehoram. “Prepare your sons, woman, and I will send my servants to take them.”

With these words, he left the house. The wife of Ovadiah wept bitterly, turning in supplication to the Master of the Universe: “Master of the World, when a woman has parents who marry her off — if her husband dies, she returns to her father’s house. I have no father and no mother.

“I am extremely poor, and the creditor is coming to take my two sons; to whom shall I turn? I have no one to turn to but my Father in Heaven, of whom it is written that He is the Father of orphans and the Judge of widows.”

In her distress, the wife of Ovadiah decided to seek help from the prophet Elisha. Dressed in sackcloth, she hurried with her two sons to the house of the prophet, and when she reached his door, she began to wail bitterly:

“Elisha! Your servant Ovadiah, my husband, is dead, and Yehoram has come to take my sons as slaves! My master, I beg you, support my two sons. Do you remember my G-d-fearing husband, Ovadiah?! Didn’t you hide in one of the caves as my husband brought you bread, water, and oil for light? I beg you, help the abandoned widow! Help my orphaned sons!”

But Elisha did not answer. The wife of Ovadiah continued knocking on the prophet’s door, weeping. “The debt of my husband, Ovadiah, is not his private debt! It is a debt he took for the sake of the prophets of Hashem! Is this the Torah and its reward?!”

Elisha was torn, but he knew with ruach hakodesh that no man would be able to help her. Only the merit of her deceased husband would stand for her and her sons. She needed to go and plead at his grave, and only there would her cries be answered.

The wife of Ovadiah kept returning and crying before the prophet Elisha, until the number of her supplications was equivalent to the gematria of the word “tze’akah” (cry) — 265 requests.

In the way of the world, one who begs from his fellow and is answered in the negative, gives up; but not the wife of Ovadiah. The spiritual future of her children hanging in the balance, she gathered her sons and walked to the cemetery. If the living would not help her, she would turn to the dead and ask them to advocate for her before the Creator of the World.

“The wife of Ovadiah saved her sons, and they did not serve idols with Achav.” (Yalkut Mishlei 31:27)

IN vain, the wife of Ovadiah searched for the grave of her husband. Because of their poverty, Ovadiah had been buried in a poor man’s grave and hadn’t merited a tombstone.

With her children wrapped in her arms, the wife of Ovadiah burst into loud, heartrending sobs, made up of nothing but helplessness, despair, and a mother’s love for her children.

“G-d-fearing one of Hashem! G-d-fearing of Hashem!” she cried, hoping that someone in the heavens would hear her weeping. “Answer me, G-d-fearing one of Hashem! Answer this wretched, poor woman!”

The cries that burst from her broken, crushed heart did not return empty. The dead began to stir and shout back, “Who is the G-d-fearing one of Hashem whom you seek? For there were four who feared Hashem: Avraham, Yosef, Iyov, and Ovadiah. If you call Avraham — he is not available to you, for he and the satan are standing in judgment. If you call Yosef — he is not available to you, for he and his brothers are standing in judgment over having sold him. If you call Iyov — he is not available to you, for his house was destroyed and his sons died, and he and the satan are standing in judgment.”

“I call only the one of whom it is said ‘and he feared Hashem greatly,’ ” replied the wife of Ovadiah to the voices surrounding her. “Indeed, all the righteous were God-fearing, but their fear was in good-heartedness and generosity of spirit. Avraham and Iyov fed passersby and their homes were wide open, and Yosef provided for his father, his brothers, and their children. But my husband, Ovadiah, supported one hundred prophets and had no personal benefit at all from it.”

And then, a wonder: The grave of her husband was revealed before her eyes. The miserable widow cried from the bitterness of her heart, “Hear me, my master, where is your promise to me? You told me, as you left This World, ‘The Master of the Universe promised me, saying: ‘Leave your orphans, I will sustain them, and your widows will trust in Me.’ And now, I have no savior, and our orphans are crying out before me and asking, ‘Where is father? Where is father?’

“My husband, Ovadiah, I did not disturb your rest when my house was empty and I was poor and destitute,” said the wife of Ovadiah. “But now, when this is about the spiritual future of our sons, I have come here to cry. Ovadiah! Our sons’ chinuch hangs in the balance! What will become of our sons if they grow up in the house of Yehoram?!”

At the sound of her cries, the two small orphans burst into piercing screams. “Take us, Father! Take us, Father! We prefer to die and join you rather than become slaves to the wicked Yehoram.”

The wife of Ovadiah continued to argue at her husband’s grave: “Haven’t we learned that children will not stumble in a matter in which their righteous ancestors were careful? As it says, ‘Na’ar hayisi… I was a youth and also have grown old, and I have not seen a righteous man forsaken and his offspring seeking bread’. [Tehillim 37:25] And you, who labored and gave your life for the prophets in order to increase the honor of Heaven in the world — will your sons be lost?”

As the wife of Ovadiah cried, the ministering angels went to Ovadiah. “Behold, your wife is standing and crying at your grave!”

Ovadiah went to Chizkiyahu and asked him to help. Chizkiyahu answered him: “I have done enough in This World.” Ovadiah turned to the holy Forefathers, to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and asked them to assist his wife. The Avos said to him, “Tell your wife to go to the navi Elisha.”

Ovadiah returned to his wife, standing at his grave, and said to her, “Woe, poor woman! Go to the navi Elisha, and with the small amount of oil you have left, he will bless you. When I hid the prophets in the cave, their oil lamps did not go out — neither by day nor by night. And it is clear to me that the prophet Elisha will mention my deeds and my self-sacrifice before the Holy One, blessed be He, and He will repay you what I lent Him. For it is said: ‘He who is gracious to the poor lends to Hashem.’ (Mishlei 19:17)”

The widow accepted her husband’s words and left the cemetery. She returned to Elisha and informed him of what her husband had told her. “Know, Elisha, that even if my claims weren’t valid, you are obligated to listen to a downtrodden widow, let alone the wife of a talmid chacham. And even if my husband had not been righteous, how have my sons sinned?”

“‘And there was great wrath upon Yisrael’ — the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Yisrael: The idolaters do not recognize My honor, therefore they rebel against Me; but you, who recognize My honor, you rebel against Me?! Rabbi Mani said: Were it not for the merit of the wife of Ovadiah, Yisrael would already have been destroyed.” (Tanchuma, Ki Sisa 5)

Elisha conceded. “What can I do for you? You know that I cannot act against the king, who is the creditor. But I can give you abundance so you can repay the debt. What do you have in the house?” He knew that blessings from Above can only rest upon something. Just as one does not recite Bircas Hamazon on a table that is empty of food, so, too, Elisha wanted the blessing to rest upon something.

Another reason led the prophet Elisha to ask the wife of Ovadiah what she had in the house: He knew that Ovadiah had borrowed money with interest, and items acquired with such money have in them a concern of theft. Therefore, he was precise in his words, asking, ‘What do you have?’ — specifying that he wanted only that which belonged to her in complete personal ownership, upon which it was possible to bring down the blessing.

The wife of Ovadiah looked at her empty house and answered, “I have nothing at all. Only a small jug with a trace of oil in it, a smear of a newborn baby’s tiny finger.”

She brought the jug to the prophet, and he recognized it as the jug that Ovadiah used to sustain the prophets in the cave. When he saw it, Elisha said, “You have comforted me! Let your mind be at ease.” Ovadiah used to kindle oil for the sons of the neviim so their lamps wouldn’t go out at night, and it was fitting that a miracle be done for his wife with oil.

“ ‘She watches over the ways of her household, and the bread of idleness she does not eat’ (Mishlei 31:27) — that she went to Elisha and said to him: Are you not one of the sons of the prophets whom my husband hid in the cave? He said to her: Yes. And what is your situation? She said to him: Pray for me that I may be supported by the work of my hands and that I not need people. At that moment Elisha blessed her and she was blessed and supported from the work of her hands, and a miracle within a miracle was done for her.” (Yalkut Me’am Loez)

With the jug of oil in hand, the wife of Ovadiah listened to the instructions of the prophet. “Go, borrow as many vessels as possible from your neighbors, for the miracle that is about to happen will be done all at one time, and I do not want it to cease because there are not enough vessels.”

The wife of Ovadiah looked in astonishment at the prophet. “Do you think that the neighbors will lend a poor widow vessels when they know that I have no way to return anything?”

“He who told the Egyptians to lend to Israel will do it for you,” answered Elisha, but the wife of Ovadiah did not want to go out of the house and she explained, “I do not go outside, because of modesty.”

“If that is the reason you do not wish to turn to the neighbors,” said the navi, “go yourself and ask from your female neighbors, and tell your sons to ask for vessels from the male neighbors.” And he added, “When you knock on the doors of your neighbors — do not minimize your request! For the way of those who ask is to speak in the negative and to say, ‘Surely you have no vessels for me.’ But you should not do so; instead, speak positively and say to them, ‘Certainly you have vessels to lend me.’ And be careful not to count the vessels that they give you, for blessing does not rest on something that is counted and numbered.”

The wife of Ovadiah hurried to do as Elisha had said, gathering as many vessels as possible. She took even broken earthenware vessels, saying, “He Who decreed that empty vessels should be filled will decree that broken vessels be repaired.”

When the house was full of vessels, the prophet instructed her: “Now, close the door behind you, for it is fitting for a miracle to be performed in private.”

“On the contrary!” she argued with him. “Let it be done publicly and let everyone know that a miracle was done for a widow!”

But the prophet did not agree. “Your husband supported the prophets in private. Close the door so that no one should see and, Heaven forbid, cast an evil eye upon your house. When the door is closed, raise your hand and tilt the one jug that has a trace of oil toward an empty vessel. The jug will turn into a flowing spring of oil. When the vessel is filled to the brim, tell your sons to place another empty vessel under your jug.

“But do not move from your place! The miracle only rests in the place where you first sat. The Holy One, blessed be He, will turn the oil into a spring, and it is not the way of a spring to move from its place.”

When the prophet finished his instructions, the wife of Ovadiah closed the door and did as he had instructed her. She lifted the hand that held the ancient jug, her sons ready at her side, and behold — a wonder! Pure oil flowed from the jug and filled the vessels, one after the other.

Three hundred and ninety-five vessels, the numerical value of the word “hashemen” (oil), were filled by the sons of the wife of Ovadiah — including the broken earthenware vessels, which were repaired by Hashem’s command.

And only when her sons said, “There are no more vessels,” did the oil stop flowing.

The woman then asked Elisha if it was appropriate for her to use oil derived from a miracle, and if she could benefit from it since maasros had not been taken.

“The miracle was meant to benefit you and enable you to pay the debt that your husband borrowed,” Elisha ruled. “And you are not obligated in maaser. When your husband fed the neviim, he tithed the bread before bringing it to them, so they did not become obligated in maasros. Therefore, you, too, are not required to tithe the oil that was given to you through a miracle.”

The woman was frightened. “If I go to the marketplace and tell everyone that the oil’s source is a miracle, the matter will immediately be publicized. King Yehoram will certainly hear of it and claim that the oil belongs to him. He will send his servants to steal the oil from me — what shall I do?”

“He who shut the mouths of the dogs of Egypt so that they did not wag their tongues, and shut the mouths of the lions of Daniel — He will close the eyes and ears of the sons of Achav, and they will not harm you,” Elisha reassured her and explained: “You must know that when money comes to a person from the blessing of Hashem, the Holy One, blessed be He, guards it. As it is written: ‘Yevarechecha Hashem v’yishmerecha — may Hashem bless you and guard you.’ Our Sages explain, ‘He will bless you with money, and He will guard you from damaging forces.’

“Just as a father who gives his son a dowry with a generous eye always watches over it and advises his son, so, too, the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over this money.”

Elisha added a request: “Please, do not be like the woman of Tzarfas who did not flourish from the miracle that happened to her. Rather, you keep others alive, distribute the oil to all your acquaintances. And even after you pay the debt to Yehoram, the remaining money will be enough to support you and your sons until the day of techiyas hameisim, for the blessing of Hashem rests forever and ever and does not cease.”

The wife of Ovadiah heard the good tidings and immediately recited the brachah “hatov v’hameitiv,” thanking Hashem Who is good and does good, then returned to her home.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 972)