Chana: Refusing to Accept the Status Quo

Chana is named as one of the seven prophetesses in Israel¹, with a prayer so formative that it is nearly unparalleled, and from which we learn fundamentals about tefillah. Although Chana was a tzadeket, a deeper analysis into her actions shows us a complex sketch of what a righteous woman can really look like. Chana had many good, noble intentions, but often uncommon behaviours. What lesson can we take from Chana’s journey to motherhood?

After ten years of childless marriage, Chana’s husband, Elkanah, took a second wife, Peninah². To any regular woman, this would be a huge test – imagine the mix of feelings you would have to remain barren (desperately wanting a child) while another woman enters your home and builds a family with your husband. According to the Pesikta Rabbati³, this plan was actually initiated by Chana herself. Chana remembered what happened with Sarah and Avraham, and thought that if Hashem saw how selfless she was by bringing in a rival wife, that He would bless her with a child, just like He did with Sarah.

Alas, that didn’t happen. In fact, this rival wife “vexed her”⁴ by taunting her about her infertility for years. Chana descended deeper into despair the longer this new arrangement went on. Now, it’s important to point out that the Gemara does not paint Peninah as maliciously as she comes across in the text. Where Sefer Shmuel I writes that Peninah “would taunt [Chana] so that she would weep”⁵, Chazal wrote that Peninah’s intentions were good – she wanted to provoke Chana into storming the heavens with prayers for a child⁶. Still, this was torturous for Chana. 

Elkanah tries to console Chana, reassuring her of his love for her⁷, but that, too, only makes Chana more upset. Chana’s climax of despair happens shortly after Elkanah’s futile words, when she goes to the Beit HaMikdash and prays to Hashem in an unconventional way for a righteous woman. The text states that “[i]n her wretchedness, she prayed to Hashem, weeping all the while.”⁸ What ensues is a combination of threatening, bargaining, and begging. 

In praying for a child, Chana throws everything she has at Hashem. She challenges him on her mitzvah observance⁹, asks if it is too difficult for Hashem to give her a son¹⁰, reminds Him of the reason He created people¹¹, outright demands a child¹², and so on. According to one opinion¹³, she even threatened to invoke the Sotah ritual so that she would be found innocent and Hashem would be forced to uphold His promise made in sefer Bamidbar¹⁴. 

Everything we are traditionally taught about emunah and bitachon centers around accepting Hashem’s timing in everything. We are told to acknowledge that Hashem is the One in charge, and while we all should do our hishtadlut, we are forced to remember that we don’t understand Hashem’s cheshbonot of the world.

Eventually, she arrives at a bargain. If Hashem will give her a son, then she will dedicate him to the Beit HaMikdash and “no razor shall ever touch his head”¹⁵, meaning that he will be a Nazir from birth. Finally, Hashem answered her prayer. The Gemara relates that on that Rosh Hashana, Chana was granted conception (the same date on which Sarah Imenu conceived)¹⁶.

While the rest of Chana’s story follows beautifully with the birth of Shmuel¹⁷, her incomparable prayer of thanks¹⁸, dedicating Shmuel to the service of Hashem¹⁹, and having more children²⁰, let’s stop and analyze the above for a moment.

Everything we are traditionally taught about emunah and bitachon centers around accepting Hashem’s timing in everything. We are told to acknowledge that Hashem is the One in charge, and while we all should do our hishtadlut, we are forced to remember that we don’t understand Hashem’s cheshbonot of the world.

Chana, however, didn’t seem to act that way. Chana’s whole journey of tefillah is remarkably relatable to all of us non-tzaddikim, who struggle daily to grapple with the above concepts. Are we supposed to learn from her that we can say whatever we want to Hashem, however we want, and expect that Hashem will concede?  

I don’t believe that that is the message from Chana. Anyone can see that Chana acted from a place of desperation. She may have made some bad judgments, and these all included trying to ‘get into Hashem’s head’ instead of staying in her own. The Yalkut Shimoni writes that it was in the merit of Chana’s prostration before Hashem that she was granted conception²¹. Surely this wasn’t the first time that she had prostrated before Him, but this time was novel. The way in which she prayed so silently, bringing the matter before Hashem and no one else, is what made the difference. 

Chana needed to stop focusing on Peninah and Elkanah, or on what Hashem did for those before her, and bring everything inward. So inward, in fact, that her model of prayer became the standard of how we pray to Hashem today. 

Chana is not a lesson in patience, she is a lesson in perseverance. That she never faulted in her observance in almost two decades of waiting for a child, and tirelessly tried new ways of praying to Hashem until she found the right one is the testament to her righteousness, and the message that we can take with us into our daily struggles. 

1. Megillah 14a ↩︎
2. Yalkut Shimoni, Shmuel 89 ↩︎
3. Pesikta Rabbati 43:6 ↩︎
4. Shmuel I 1:6 ↩︎
5. Shmuel I 1:7 ↩︎
6. Bava Batra 16a ↩︎
7.  Shmuel I 1:8 ↩︎
8. Shmuel I 1:10 ↩︎
9. Berachot 31b ↩︎
10. ibid. ↩︎
11. Pesikta Rabbati 43:3 ↩︎
12. Berachot 31b ↩︎
13. ibid ↩︎
14. Bamidbar 2:28 ↩︎
15. Shmuel I 1:11 ↩︎
16. Berachot 29a ↩︎
17. Shmuel I 1:20 ↩︎
18. Shmuel I 2:1-10 ↩︎
19. Shmuel I 1:28 ↩︎
20. Pesikta Rabbati 44:7 ↩︎
21. Yalkut Shimoni, Shmuel 80 ↩︎