Elijah, Radical Jewish Impatience
The prophet Elijah is alive and kicking and visiting homes in North West London. At least he is if children in Akiva School year 6 are to be believed. A while ago I had the privilege of teaching the year 6 class at the Akiva School. I was asked to teach them why we have a cup of Elijah on the table at Pesach. Who is Elijah – and why does he get to come to our Sederim – or not!
Turns out that Elijah has indeed visited the Sedarim of many of the young people. When the cup of Elijah is filled up at the Seder – mysteriously some of it seems to disappear before the Seder is over – it’s as if Elijah has come to drink from it. For one Akiva student Elijah has appeared a couple of times at her Seder with woolly beard and hair and looking rather like one of her uncles. For another apparently Elijah metamorphoses into a fly which her Grandpa always seems to be able to spot somewhere in the room after the door has been opened.
Now these Elijahs clearly come from the same place as the tooth fairy. And as we all know the tooth fairy is real! People really want to believe that a better time is about to come.
The Prophet Elijah first appears in the First Book of Kings Chapter 17 at a time of crisis among the people of Israel. At this time the Northern Jewish kingdom under King Ahab and his wife Jezebel had turned to idolatry, setting up temples to the fertility god of the Canaanites, Ba’al. In the process Jezebel had massacred hundreds of prophets, men and women with an acute spirituality who were the religious rather than cultic leaders of their day. In disgust at the situation Elijah went to meditate in the wilderness, where in a fashion that was to happen many times in his life, God saw to his feeding – via a helpful raven. Returning from the wilderness he revived the son of one the supporters of God’s prophets from apparent death.
During a drought and resultant famine he was found by Ahab and ordered to Mount Carmel to challenge the prophets of Ba’al to see who could bring rain by succeeding in getting their god to set fire to a sacrifice. Elijah won the contest having soaked his sacrifice with scarce water.
Back in the wilderness, to which he escaped from a livid Jezebel, Elijah is again fed by a miracle and has a vision of God, neither in the fire nor earthquake which happen around him but rather in a still small voice – a bat kol. He finds his successor Elisha whose story occupies the Book of Kings after his and who is also a miracle worker and tormentor of corrupt kings.
Elijah’s most notable ultimatum to a King occurs when Ahab steals the vineyard of the neighbour to his palace Naboth, killing him in the greedy process. Elijah speaks truth to power and Ahab dies wretched. Elijah continues as a critic of the corruption both of Israel and Judah and when the time comes for him to die – he simply does not do so rather ascending in a chariot of fire as he casts his mantle down onto his successor Elisha. He appears one more time in the Tanach – at the end of the Book of Malachi, which we read on Shabbat Ha-Gadol just before Pesach – as the Prophet who will return at the end of days to turn the hearts of the parents to the children and the children to the parents – later interpreted as being able to solve all insoluble problems.
What an amazing character – one of the most sharply drawn of all the biblical characters! Dramatic, fearless, driven and passionate, a fighter for justice with right on his side, with no patience for the processes of history to slowly work their course – and with a good measure of the ability for miracles to happen around him.
Elijah’s cup and Elijah’s legendary presence at our Sedarim does not appear in the Talmud which tells us the state of the Pesach ritual in the 6th Century CE. He first enters Jewish ritual five hundred years later – about a thousand years ago – during a time when we could really have done with him back.
Elijah’s role in the Talmud is as the solver of problems which seem otherwise insoluble – and also the announcer of the coming of the Messiah or Messianic Age. He never died in the Tanach – so surely he could come back! His chair is present at every Brit Milah, circumcision because he complains that the Israelites are not following the covenant – thus he is there from the eighth Century or so onwards to supervise the entry of every Jewish boy into the Brit – the covenant with God.
In the Eleventh Century, under the shadow of the Crusades, he was clearly needed again. It is at this time that the song Eliyahu ha Navi enters the Havdalah ritual – asking that Elijah the prophet send us news of better times ahead – preferably at the end of Shabbat which the Talmud says is the right time for his arrival (Eiruvin 43b). He also enters the Birkat HaMazon at around this time – HaRachaman hu yishlach lanu et Eliyahu haNavi. If God is our comforter, HaRachaman, let Him send Elijah now!
His appearance at the Seder has two roots. One is that in some Jewish rituals there was a fifth cup of wine – not just four – corresponding to the fifth promise of Exodus Chapter 6: not only I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with a outstretched arm, and with great judgments; And I will take you to me for a people but also I will bring you in to the land. How should we know whether to drink this fifth cup? Let Elijah come and solve the problem.
It is the second root that keeps him there – it is the words L’shanah Haba’ah B’yerushalayim which ended the Seder. Next year in Jerusalem – next year in a world redeemed. Not a thousand years, nor a hundred years, nor ten years but next year. Elijah is the symbol of Jewish radical impatience. We do not have forever to improve the world. The slaves should be free now, the poor should not be hungry from tomorrow, the prisoners of conscience should be released today, the risks of climate change should be addressed immediately and hatred between peoples should cease this year.
Elijah never said – let’s wait till Ahab and Jezebel pass away and then deal with the problems of his time. Elijah did not say Ahab is powerful, he can take what he wants – his courage and passion said do it right away, right the wrongs. Each year his character, his example should inspire us so that when we sit down to our next Seder we can know that we have done what we can to bring us all at least one step closer to Jerusalem.
As well as his cup brimming full of sweet wine the symbol of Elijah is the open door – opened by a child at the Seder – hope opening the door to hope. Elijah tells us that we must open the door to our future. It is why our Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue must never be closed to the community around us. Rather our doors must be as open as possible to a better future.
Though many indidiviuals in our community do great work for change, as a Synagogue we are not greatly involved with the issues that make living in this area tough for many people. Our Community Care team of professionals and volunteers certainly helps to care for our own community members. We are about to conclude offering a shelter for local homeless people each Monday night so we help to an extent with that issue. Our EcoJudaism group brings awareness of what we can do to avert the disaster of climate change. We have links with the Leo Baeck Center in Haifa to give us a window on Israel. All four of these aspect of our work are valuable but given that there are 3500 of us as members of EHRS, our contribution as a community to fixing the troubles of the world, right here and in Israel is not that large. The Red Sea is open in front of us be we are not walking through.
To live up to the heritage of Elijah and what he represents we can do more. We can build effective social action and social justice programmes together. We can learn about the problems of our local area where we can help. We can support great work in Israel. In two weeks I will be in Jerusalem for the Biennial Conference of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and I hope to come back with connections and ideas for what we can do.
We should be the Jews with radical impatience for a better future, opening the door to Elijah to symbolise that we are working to bring about a Messianic age. If not Jerusalem next year then at least a better North West London!
