And so the decision as to the number of cups was left teku , but the Passover haggadah prescribes four cups for us to drink-possibly as a parallel to the four questions and the four sons. But just in case there really should be five, the writers of the haggadah called for an additional symbolic cup. Ah, that takes us back to that word teku. Nobody is certain of the derivation of teku which, by the way, is also used in Israel today when a soccer match ends in a tie. It may derive from tekum , meaning "it will stand," i.
Later folk literature would often introduce Elijah as the savior in all-too-frequent situations when communities of Jews were in dire straits. Out of nowhere and often disguised, Elijah would appear and foil the wicked plot. Again, why Elijah? Because he was the hero who could call down miracles; he was the intimate of God who never died; and he was the intercessor who would zealously plead the cause of his people.
And so, Jews continue to venerate him-at every meal, at the end of every Sabbath, at circumcisions, and, most famously, at our Passover seders. Rabbi Simeon J. Maslin , a past CCAR president, is the author of several books on Jewish practices, including the recently published Affiliate Hat ReformJudaism. Passover: The Mystery of the Fifth Cup. Simeon J. Havdalah In most Jewish communities the popular song Eliyahu Ha-Navi is sung during the havdalah service marking the conclusion of Shabbat, a tradition that goes back to at least the eleventh century; Sephardic communities add an elaborate line poem glorifying Elijah.
Birkat Ha-Mazon In the same spirit of seeking comfort in times of adversity, around the eleventh century a verse was added to the birkat ha-mazon prayers of thanks after meals petitioning God to send Elijah with the news of the forthcoming redemption: " Harahaman hu yishlach lanu et Eliyahi Ha-Navi -May the Merciful One send us Elijah the Prophet, whose memory brings us blessing, so that he may tell us the good news of redemption, victories, and comfort.
Passover Seder While the best-known explanation of why we welcome Elijah on Passover is his role as herald of the messianic age, this, in fact, is not his primary function at the seder, at least not when the tradition started.
One of those ways is to connect the mysterious and mythical Elijah with a similar figure — Santa Claus. The story of Santa Claus is based on the legend of Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century Greek Christian bishop who became famous for his generous gifts to the poor.
Like Elijah in the Bible, Saint Nicholas — and his later incarnation as the modern-day Santa Claus — is seen as a fighter of injustice. That framework is valuable, sometimes.
As a result, OurJewishCommunity. We then placed a figure of Elijah there, to show him visiting these places. He calls out to God and summons a fire from the heavens which consumes not only the sacrifice, but the stone altar and surrounding earth as well. Transformed for the moment, the people proclaim that God alone is the true God — a peak moment for Elijah.
But it turns out to be short-lived. Fearing for his life, Elijah flees to the desert, where, in a moment that echoes the revelation at Sinai, God sends a shattering wind, an earthquake, and then a fire. For theologians, this moment is an archetypal one, underscoring that Spielbergian special effects are not a prerequisite for a revelatory encounter with the Divine. The chapters in which he appears are among the most dramatic in all of the Bible.
When his time on Earth comes to a close, Elijah does not die; rather, the Bible reports that God transports him to the heavens on a fiery chariot. While God honored Moses by attending to him at the moment of his death, it is Elijah who is invited into the divine realm. Already in the Second Temple period, his role as the harbinger of divine redemption was noted by the biblical prophet Malachi. The rabbis of the Talmud imagined Elijah sitting intimately with God in the heavenly court and traveling back and forth between the divine and human realms.
These stories, and those that followed, depict an Elijah who continues to take interest in the world he left behind, offering assistance to those in need and seeking out the one who will usher in the messianic era. Elijah became a part of not only the Jewish past, but the Jewish present and our hopes for the Jewish future.
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