Sermon: The not-Messiah of Golders Green and Radical Jewish Impatience- First Day of Pesach 2010

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 1 April 2010

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 week ago I had the privilege of teaching Liz Papier’s 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.  What do you do if you are the one they think is Elijah?

This has happened to poor Raj Patel.  Raj Patel is a 37 year old economist who grew up here in Golders Green.  He has written popular books about problems in global food production and ideas for solving the inequalities that result.  He recently published a book called “the Value of Nothing” about how we might fix the system which resulted in the recent financial collapse.

A few months ago, the Guardian Newspaper reported (20/3/10 p11) he appeared on an American talk show to plug his book.  Soon afterwards followers of the Scottish mystic and theosophist Benjamin Crème started to e-mail and write to him asking him if he was truly Maitreya – the world teacher predicted by Mr Crème.   If so then Raj Patel is the embodiment of an 18 million year old saviour who has been resting in the Himalayas for the past 2000 years.  Followers have come half way across the world to meet him and the messages have not stopped.  But for poor Raj Patel this is all becoming a bit much.  As he says “People are very ready to abdicate responsibility and have it shovelled on to someone else’s shoulders….whenever there is going to be someone who’s just going to fix it for you, it’s a very attractive story.  It’s in every mythological structure.”  Raj Patel is not taking this very seriously – nor are his parents who have created a t-shirt for him based on the line in Monty Python’s life of Brian “he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”  – but do we take it seriously when we invite Elijah into our homes and how does he inspire us to take our own responsibility for the future?

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 King’s 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 Synagogue, Alyth, must never be closed to the community around us.  Rather our doors must be as open as possible to a better future.

This is why on Wednesday evening April 21st Alyth has invited the whole of the community of Finchley and Golders Green to come and join us for an election hustings.  All of the candidates to become our next Member of Parliament are coming here to Alyth – Cllrs Mike Freer, Alison Moore, Laura Edge and Donald Lynn, respectively Conservative, Labour, Liberal-Democrat and Green party candidates – will be here to answer our questions about their vision for our future.  We have invited all other faith groups in the area and our invitation has so far been accepted by many local churches and the Hindu temple in Golders Green.    As they say in the Apprentice – three of you will get fired and one will be hired. We cannot assume that Elijah will be here to help us to work out the solutions to our problems, we cannot place our responsibility on the shoulders of others, as the not-Messiah of Golders Green, Raj Patel said, so in the meantime we must be the Jews with radical impatience for a better future.  If not Jerusalem next year then at least a better North West London!