When rabbi telushkin talks about Elijah, he’s like “how did this grouchy, bad-tempered prophet become the mythical grandpa of the entire jewish people? Why not a more personable prophet? We could have had somebody nice and jolly like Santa Claus instead of this man”
And then he basically says it’s because Elijah just can’t be satisfied, he didn’t even die, he stayed alive and just disappeared into the sky out of sheer annoyance at the unsatisfactory nature of existence and he will be clumping around the world forever, glaring at things and yelling at people, until the messiah comes
“disappeared into the sky out of sheer annoyance at the unsatisfactory nature of existence”
omg please tell me about this Elijah dude, he sounds exactly like my kind of dude
Where to begin? He’s the Trickster figure of Judaism is what I always say, at once the loudest and the sneakiest of the prophets.
He spent his whole career denouncing a bad king and his even more problematic wife. They almost killed him a few times, but he survived, and as mentioned above, never actually died, just ascended into heaven in a fiery chariot. (This is after he basically tells God he’s just too damn tired to prophet anymore.) He brought a child back from the dead through prayer.
He held a prophet-off with the prophets of Baal. Basic challenge: we each put up a sacrifice. The one whose god accepts it with fire wins. He sits back and makes fun of them while they do their stuff…”YELL LOUDER. MAYBE HE’S ASLEEP”. When it’s his turn, he pours water all over his offering, and it goes up in flames from heaven anyway. (My teacher in my Nevi’im class mentioned, in passing, that there’s crude oil in the region.)
In his not-dead-just-semi-retired afterlife, he attends every Seder and bris worldwide. It’s said he will herald the arrival of Moshiach.
He was, and remains, kind of a crank. But he’s always there for the people who need him.
There are a million legends.
How does a grouchy, bad-tempered, prophet of
Judea, dropped in the middle of a
Forgotten spot in the Levant by providence,
Poor but filled with vigor,
End up being the Jewish trickster figure?And then he basically says it’s because Elijah just can’t be satisfied, he didn’t even die, he stayed alive and just disappeared into the sky out of sheer annoyance at the unsatisfactory nature of existence and he will be clumping around the world forever, glaring at things and yelling at people, until the messiah comes
i’m elijah tbh
No but this is the best thing
I once read that Elijah’s central angst is that all the other Jews of his generation are abandoning religion or being killed and he is worried he’ll be the last one left in a dying religion (by the way, The Last Jew is a common Jewish angst trope in the 21st century as well) – see, for example, “the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away”, 1 Kings 19:10.
So, Elijah complains to God and God sentences him to appear at every brit milah and every Seder – the rituals that last beyond most others (I have friends who are militantly secular and they hold Seders with shellfish and ham on the table. They are still holding a Seder). Like, “You think you are the last Jew?! You will see every Jew being Jewish from now until the Messiah comes”i feel like “i’m not even gonna die bc the world is so unsatisfying, im just gonna keep on trying to fix it for all fucking eternity” is the most intrinsically jewish thing and i love it
This is why I remain Jewish. Because the world is a mess…and we just need to roll up our sleeves and get to fucking work on it.
Elijah is the grumpy uncle who at first you have to invite to everything and then, he just…shows up. AT EVERYTHING. And nothing is good enough for him, things were better in the old days, these kids today have no respect, what is this swill, why don’t you have any good Judean wine…
And he just continues to come. Until finally, you just pour a drink for him out of reflex.
Because …mishpocha, nu?
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Kimchi and Justice 