Elijah was a very old man. He was a prophet of God, one of the greatest human beings in history. Ahab was an evil king. But,  "The hand of God was upon Elijah, and he girded his loins and ran before Ahab until the approach to Jezreel." (Kings I 18:46) Whether Elijah honored Ahab in order to fulfill a prophecy (Abarbanel) or, whether the spirit of God gave him great strength to run before the wicked king (Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 2:45), why did Elijah so honor Ahab?

Elijah is one matter, but Moses! God commanded Moses to treat Pharaoh with the respect due a king, a leader of a government, any leader, any government! (Zevachim 102a) The Maharsha explains that this is based on a concept introduced in Berachot (58a) that "The royalty of earth is a reflection of the royalty of Heaven." The Talmud uses this concept to explain the law that we are obligated to recite a blessing if we see a powerful leader in person: "Who has given of His glory to human beings". We believe that God actively and willfully gave of His glory to the leader.

We believe that God is actively involved as The Guider of History. We acknowledge God's role in directing history when we recite this blessing, and when we pray for the welfare of our government.

We live in historic times. We celebrate the election of a new leader of our great nation. It is irrelevant at this point if we voted for him or not. We must understand that that our prayers should be directed to ask God to guide our leader to direct his government with wisdom, compassion and grace.
We pray that President Obama will be a worthy vehicle to reflect God's countless blessings on our nation. We pray that God will guide President Obama, grant him great wisdom and clarity, and inspire him to use his opportunity to accomplish great and good things for the United States.

Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg
President

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