This past Shabbat, I delivered the following D’var Torah in preparation for Pesah:
The last several weeks we have been reviewing a series of special shabbatot, special sabbaths, that anticipate Purim and Passover, each of which have special parshiot, special torah portions, that help us prepare our hearts, our minds, and our spirits for the approaching holidays.
This shabbat is known simply as Shabbat Hagadol—the great shabbat—though it has no special parshah, no special Torah portion, to elucidate its themes.
So the rabbis of old wanted to know—why? What is so gadol, so big, so great, about this shabbat? What is so special about it? Granted it is the shabbat immediately before Passover, so clearly something is important about it, but what? There don’t seem to be any special rituals associated with it.
One observed that the Shabbat before pesah is traditionally the shabbat on which the rabbi gives their longest sermon of the year on all the different laws of keeping kosher for pesah, and the members of the community—I kid you not—would call this shabbat hagadol, the great and long shabbat, because it would keep them there, yes, so long. (I am sparing you this year on that one.)
Another surmised that it was the shabbat before the first pesah in Egypt when the community took a sheep from their flock in anticipation of the first pesah offering whose blood went on the doorposts, which the angel of death passed over—and thus it was called shabbat hagadol because of the greatness of this miracle.
But most agree that the notion of Shabbat hagadol comes from the very last line of the haftarah, the teaching of the prophets we read on this shabbat from the prophet known as Malachi (a name which means simply “my messenger”). The prophet says on behalf of God:
“before the coming of the day of Adonai that is” hagadol v’hanora “great and awesome ” (Malachi 3:23). Hagadol.
In the midst of your struggles, in the midst of your heartbreak, in the midst of the challenges of the world and of living, God is going to send Elijah the prophet to all the people before “yom Adonai hagadol v’hanorah,” “before the great and awesome day of Adonai.”
Okay. Well, what’s so special about Elijah? What is Elijah going to do?
“Elijah will reconcile the hearts of parents with children and the hearts of children with their parents,” (Malachi 3:23-24), symbolizing the dawn of a new age.
It’s a beautiful sentiment just on the eve of Passover. Many of us have deep associations with Elijah and Elijah’s cup on Passover; maybe we crack the door open for him at the end of the evening, maybe we look to see whether he has taken a little sip out of the cup, a precursor to Santa’s milk and cookies, sneaking in to have a taste as he makes his way through the world.
But Elijah is a mysterious figure in Jewish tradition, so let’s ask who he is, what role he plays in the Jewish story, and what teaching his presence might offer our lives.
Elijah was a prophet and miracle worker living in northern Israel in the ninth century BCE, in the early stages of the Israelite monarchy—after King David and King Solomon, but long before the destruction of the Temple and Israel’s exile.
Still, he is associated with Israel’s subsequent wanderings because of the unique circumstances surrounding Elijah’s death—or lack thereof.
In the Book of Kings, Elijah is depicted as walking and talking with his disciple Elisha when, “a fiery chariot with fiery horses suddenly appeared and separated one from the other” וַיַּ֙עַל֙ אֵ֣לִיָּ֔הוּ בַּֽסְעָרָ֖ה הַשָּׁמָֽיִם “And Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind” (II Kings 2:12).
These words forever captured the Jewish imagination, and subsequent teachings suggest, as Rabbi Neil Gillman has put it, that Elijah “never really died.” “Elijah is the ultimate liminal personality,” Gillman writes, using that now popular word which means occupying a position on both sides of a boundary or threshold—”the ultimate liminal personality, who has mastered the threshold between life and death.”
As such, we imagine Elijah’s presence at the paradigmatic liminal moments in Jewish tradition. First, birth: at each brit milah, each bris, each Jewish ritual circumcision, a sandak, something like a godparent, is invited to hold the baby while seated in a symbolic kiseh shel eliyahu, Elijah’s chair, just before the circumcision is performed at the liminal moment of the baby entering into this world and then into the covenant.
Next is havdalah, that liminal moment when kodesh and hol, the holiness of shabbat and the regularity of the rest of the week, are intertwined, are at the cusp of one another, and we sing eliyhu hanavi, recognizing Elijah’s presence at this transition between light and darkness, between the holy and everyday.
And then there is pesah.
In what way is pesah a liminal moment? Pesah not only symbolizes and re-enacts the ancient journey from slavery, oppression, and constriction to freedom and expansiveness, but, according to tradition, Pesach also presages the future redemption. Jewish tradition teaches that the mashiach, the messiah, the figure whose presence signifies an elevated era of peace and harmony, will arrive on Pesah. And the mashiach’s arrival is heralded by the presence of Elijah. Elijah will be the forerunner of the messiah; the two go hand in hand. Elijah’s presence signifies the potential for the arrival of a redemptive age.
Put another way, the liminal moment that Elijah arrives at for Passover is the threshold between what has been, what is, and what can be.
There were moments in our national story where it felt like all we were ever going to know was pressure and oppression and constriction. And then, lo and behold, we took our first steps to freedom between the walls of the sea.
So, too, now, it sometimes feels like this existence is all we’re ever going to know; like we’re never going to stop reading the news about a shooting in our schools, or a planet under duress, or the continued rise in antisemitism. Like our fear, our anxiety, our alienation from the Divine will never cease.
But radical transformation has happened before and can again; that is the story of Passover: relying on that sacred blend of divine inspiration and human agency, recognizing the power we have in our hands if we would but marshal it.
Appearances from Elijah help remind us of the capacity for radical transformation.
How? Well, as we said, Elijah comes וְהֵשִׁ֤יב לֵב־אָבוֹת֙ עַל־בָּנִ֔ים וְלֵ֥ב בָּנִ֖ים עַל־אֲבוֹתָ֑ם; “to reconcile parents with children and children with their parents,” or more generally to reconcile the generations with one other, opening up all of our hearts to be more open to the stories, the experiences of those around us, helping us go on that journey through the sea together.
So where is Elijah? When is Elijah going to actually come to help us do this?
Scholar Daniel Matt recounts the Hasidic tale where once, before Passover, the disciples of Menaḥem Mendel (the Kotsker Rebbe) complained to him about the “annual disappointment” of not finding Elijah at the door when they would open it on the eve of Passover. We want to be reconciled to one another; we want to reach this redemptive age, they said. Passover after passover, Elijah doesn’t show, they said.
[The Rebbe] promised them that Elijah would be revealed to them at the upcoming seder. “On the first night of the festival, the room was full, the atmosphere charged,” Matt writes. “with Elijah’s cup waiting on the table. The seder proceeded, and finally the door was opened. What happened next left the disciples astonished. Nothing; no one appeared. Crushed, they turned to their Rebbe, whose face was… beaming. Seeing their distress, he asked, ‘What’s troubling you?’
“They told him.
“’Fools!’ he thundered. ‘Do you think Elijah the prophet enters through the door? He enters through the heart.’”
May we all find Elijah around our tables and in our hearts this year, reconciling us to one another.
Hag Pesah Sameah, may you have a joyous Passover holiday,
