Grave

Elkanah

Father of Shmuel HaNavi

Elkanah was the husband of the prophetess Channah, and is also known as Ish HaElokim.

He was one of the early prophets and the father of Shmuel HaNavi. Elkanah was a Levite. He himself prophesied to Eli HaKohen regarding Eli's punishment and the rupture of his family line. Elkanah lived three generations before the construction of the First Temple.

Ascents to Shiloh

The Torah (Shemot 34:23) states: "Three times a year shall all your males appear before the L-rd G-d, the G-d of Israel." The pilgrimage festivals are therefore called in the Torah regalim (רגלים), from the word "foot" (רגל — regel), since the pilgrims ascended to the Temple on foot.

Elkanah initiated a fourth aliyah — on Rosh HaShanah — in addition to the standard three festivals. Every Rosh HaShanah he would ascend to Shiloh with his family, and each time he would take a different route, thereby encouraging more people to make the pilgrimage to Shiloh.

Elkanah lived in Ramatayim Tzofim in the hill country of Ephraim. His father was Yerocham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Tzuf. The Book of Shmuel (I) tells the story of Elkanah, who had two wives.

Channah was Elkanah's first wife; after they had lived together for ten years and Channah had not borne him children, he married Peninah. The Midrash Pirkei Rabbati writes that Channah acted as our matriarch Sarah had — she brought a rival wife into the home: "If I tell Elkanah to take another wife, G-d will see that I have brought in a rival and will remember me." Peninah had ten sons, and her children are briefly mentioned in the Book of Melachim in connection with offerings. We learn this from Elkanah's question to Channah: "Am I not better to you than ten sons?" — implying that he sought to comfort Channah by saying his love for her surpasses that of Peninah's ten sons.

Gilgulei Neshamot

In the book Gilgulei Neshamot, the Rama MiFano (Rav Menachem Azariah of Fano) writes that Elkanah, the husband of Channah, was a gilgul of Lemech, and that Channah was a gilgul of Tzillah. Their stories are similarly parallel. Of Lemech's two wives, Adah was for children, while Tzillah was "for her husband." Tzillah drank a potion that rendered a woman barren so as not to lose her attractiveness. A hint to this is embedded in her very name: Tzillah — meaning "in the shadow" (tzeil in Hebrew) of her husband. This may explain why the verse does not say that Elkanah took two wives, but simply states that he had two wives — as if they had been with him before, in a previous incarnation.

The prophetess Channah — a gilgul of Chever — could not conceive because she had reincarnated from a masculine root, until Eli HaKohen (a gilgul of Yael) blessed her in Shiloh.

The writings of the Arizal reveal an even deeper connection.