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Elijah The Prophet
`Enters Our Hearts'
RABBI IRWIN GRONER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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T
he Sabbath before Pesach
has a special designation.
It is known as Shabbat
Hagadol, the Great Sab-
bath, and some scholars suggest
that this name is derived from
the concluding chapter of the
book of Malachi, which is al-
ways read at this season.
Malachi declared in the cli-
mactic portion of his statement
"Behold, I will send unto you
Elijah, the Prophet, before the
coming of the great and awe-
some day of the Lord." Thus, the
association of "great" or "gadol"
with this Sabbath.
Elijah is a folk hero who has
found his way into the Hag-
gadah and into the warm em-
brace of the Jewish people. At
the seder, he is given a cup to
drink, the fifth cup. We open a
door for him; we invite him to
our gathering, and we offer
songs and praises in his honor.
We are told that at the seder
table of a great Chasidic rab-
bi, one of his disciples was asked
to open the door for Elijah.
When he returned from the
open door, everyone noticed that
the Chasid's face was quite pale.
When asked why he was so
moved, the Chasid responded,
"When you open the door in the
Rebbe's house, the possibility is
strong that Elijah will really
come in, and I was afraid."
The rabbi heard these words
and responded, "You don't have
to be afraid. When Elijah will
come in, he will come not
through the door, but through
your heart."
Why, of all the great prophets
in Israel, was Elijah chosen as
our most important, albeit in-
visible, seder guest? What, in
our tradition, associates him
with Passover in coming not
just through our doors, but
"through our hearts?"
The most obvious answer is
historical. Elijah staked his life
in the struggle against idolatry
in ancient Israel. The king and
queen of Israel had betrayed the
faith of their fathers and had
succeeded in establishing
throughout the land, the wor-
ship of the Canaanite fertility
gods. Most of the true prophets
were slain by the king. But Eli-
jah demonstrated supreme
courage and zeal which desig-
nated him forever as the fore-
runner of the Messiah, as one
would herald the redemption of
all mankind. Thus, Passover,
Irwin Groner is senior rabbi of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
the festival of Jewish freedom,
is connected with Elijah, the
prophet of ultimate, universal
freedom.
Yet there was another role
which rabbis assigned to Elijah,
less awesome, but more human-
The Prophet says of Elijah that
"He will turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children, and the
hearts of the children to their
fathers." Before the coming of
Passover, we read this verse as
we prepare for the celebration
of the seder, because the great-
est of the responsibilities of Eli-
jah will be the reunion of
families, the joining of husbands
and wives, of parents and chil-
dren. In Jewish legend, it is Eli-
jah who, under different guises
and always unrecognized, ap-
pears and reappears to recon-
cile those whom bitterness had
split asunder. It is in this role,
Shabbat Hagadol:
Leviticus 6:1-8:36
Malachi 3:4-24.
even more so than as harbinger
of messianic times, that Elijah
"enters our hearts."
Passover is uniquely a fam-
ily festival when grandparents,
parents, children and relatives
reenact ancient rituals and "eat
history." The first instructions
given to the people of Israel to
observe the Passover festival
state:. "It shall come to pass
when your children shall say
unto you, 'What mean you by
this service' and thou shalt tell
the story to your children." If
the head of the household is the
king of the seder, then the star
of the performance is the child.
The whole text of the night, the
Haggadah, is intended to build
a pathway to a child's heart.
In the midst of our concern
for success and achievement on
the personal level, Judaism
teaches us that there is a foun-
dation upon which human life
itself either becomes blessed or
loses its possibility for regener-
ation, and that foundation is the
family. We have the obligation
and privilege to communicate
our heritage to our young, to re-
spond to them, to share with
them the values so precious to
us. Therefore, we hope for the
coming of Elijah because he is
a symbol of the reconciliation of
the generations.
When the generations un-