The Little Room on the Roof

Whenever Elisha passed through Shunem, a prominent woman there would invite him in for a meal. The Midrash says she was the sister of Avishag the Shunamis. One day she said to her husband: I can tell that he is a holy man of Hashem. Chazal ask how she knew, and answer that she never saw even a fly pass over his table. Let us build him a small room on the roof, she said, with a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp.

Elisha wished to repay her and offered to speak for her to the king. I dwell among my own people, she answered. Gechazi noted that she had no son and her husband was old, and Elisha promised that at this time next year she would hold a son. A year later the child was born.

Years passed. One day the boy went out to his father among the reapers and cried, my head, my head. He was carried to his mother, sat on her lap until noon, and died. She laid him on the prophet's bed, closed the door, and rode to Mount Carmel without telling her husband what had happened. There she grasped Elisha's feet. Hashem has hidden this from me, Elisha said. He sent Gechazi ahead with his staff, but the child did not stir. Then Elisha came himself, shut the door, and davened. The Midrash records his prayer: just as You worked wonders through Eliyahu my master and revived the dead, let this child live. He stretched himself over the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands, until the body grew warm. The child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Take your son, Elisha told his mother.