JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

olstered by wonder-tales. He was fed bread and meat by ravens
(I Kings 17:6) at the divine command. As an ish-elohim
(“Man of God,” i.e, divine messenger, he miraculously caused
a jar of flour and a jug of oil to keep on producing for the benefit
of a poor woman whose son he subsequently raised from
the dead (I Kings 17:7–24). It was believed that a divine wind
could take him from one place to another (I Kings 18:11). He
could bring rain and then, seized by the hand of YHWH, outrun
the royal chariot from Mount Carmel to Jezreel (I Kings
18:46). That being the case, we should not be surprised that
Elijah did not die but was carried to heaven in a chariot and
horses of fire (II Kings 2:1–11). Elijah was well-known by his
gait and manner of dress. Ahaziah’s envoys described him as
wearing “a garment of haircloth, with a girdle of leather about
his loins” (II Kings 1:8). Miraculous powers were attributed to
Elijah’s cloak. As Elijah ascended to heaven, his cloak dropped
to the ground and with its help Elisha too performed miracles
(ibid. 2:8, 13). II Chr. 21:12–15 expands on Elijah’s activity by
attributing to the prophet a letter to King Jehoram of Judah
prophesying dire punishment for worshipping foreign gods
and for fratricide. The prophecy at the end of Malachi (3:23)
that the prophet Elijah would be sent to the people before the
coming of “the great and fearful day of YHWH” came within
Judaism to mean that Elijah would herald the coming of the
*Messiah. Some early Christians, accordingly, identified *John
the Baptist with Elijah (Matt. 11:14; 17:10–13).
[Joshua Gutmann / S. David Sperling (2nd ed.)]
In the Aggadah
The deep impression left by Elijah’s revolutionary ministry
and his miraculous translation to heaven in a “chariot of fire”
drawn by “horses of fire” (II Kings 2:11) had already made Elijah
a legendary figure in biblical times. Malachi’s final prophecy
that Elijah would be sent by God “before the coming of
the great and terrible day of the Lord,” so that he may “turn
the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to their fathers” (Mal. 3:23ff.), became the point of
departure for the subsequent association of Elijah with the
Messianic age.
Ben Sira (c. 200 B.C.E.), in his eulogy of Elijah, attributed
the future restoration of “the tribes of Jacob” to him (Ecclus.
48:10). By the first century C.E., it was taken for granted
that Elijah was to be the precursor and herald of the Messiah.
Jesus himself was at first believed to be Elijah, but when he
revealed his own messianic claim, he proclaimed John the
Baptist as having been the reincarnated Elijah (Matt. 11:10ff.;
17:10ff.; Mark 9:11ff.).
It was perhaps against this Christian and sectarian tendency
to associate Elijah with religiously dubious and politically
dangerous movements that attempts were made to
counter the excessive veneration accorded to Elijah among
apocalyptic-sectarian and Christian circles. It was, accordingly,
denied that Elijah had ever gone up to heaven (Suk.
5a), biblical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Elijah’s
habit of revealing divine secrets to pious mortals (cf. BM 59b)
elijah
once earned him a severe punishment of 60 lashes of fire (BM
85b). Elijah’s denunciation of Israel for having forsaken the
divine covenant (cf. I Kings 19:10, 14) had so angered God
that He dismissed Elijah from His service and appointed Elisha
in his place (Song R. 1:6, no. 1; cf. I Kings 19:16). Above
all, the scope of Elijah’s future tasks was limited to the solution
of certain halakhic problems (Eduy. 8:7; Tosef., Eduy. 3:4).
Subsequently, too, it was believed that “when Elijah comes,
he will tell us” (Ber. 35b; cf. Men. 45a; Bek. 24a). He was indeed
supposed to have his own court (Av. Zar. 36a), and legal
problems which defied solution were to be referred to him
(Shek. 2:5; BM 1:8; 2:8; 3:4–5; Men. 63a). Nevertheless, the predominant
tannaitic view was that Elijah was not only to solve
halakhic disputes, but also to be the great peacemaker in the
world (Eduy. 8:7).
Rabbis and pious men endowed with a mystical frame of
mind established a spiritual communion with Elijah and were
reputed to have been guided by him in their studies (cf. Tanna
de-Vei Eliyahu, ed. M. Friedmann, 27ff.; Ginzberg, Legends,
4 (1913), 217–23). Nine aggadic beraitot in the Talmud are introduced
by the words “It was taught at Elijah’s school” (cf.
Friedmann op. cit. 44ff. for a complete list). Although these
beraitot may have originated from a compilation by a tanna
called Elijah (Ginzberg, Legends, 6 (1928), 330, n. 70) or from
a school called after Elijah (Friedmann, op. cit., 60–61), they
were soon attributed to the prophet. In post-talmudic times,
the Midrash Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu (“It was taught at Elijah’s
school”) was likewise believed to have emanated from the
prophet’s own “school.”
Despite such relatively restricted rules assigned to Elijah
by the rabbis, his primary task of heralding the redemption
of Israel was never forgotten (cf. also the third benediction
after the reading of the haftarah), and in the post-talmudic
era it assumed primary importance in Jewish eschatology
(cf. PR 35:161). Even earlier, Elijah appears almost invariably
in the role of one who is deeply concerned about Israel’s suffering
and exile, and who does what he can to speed the day
of deliverance. In a beautiful tannaitic aggadah, R. Yose relates
how Elijah once told him that “whenever Israelites enter
synagogues and houses of study… the Holy One, Blessed
be He, as it were shakes His head and says: Happy is the king
who is thus praised in his house! Woe to the father who exiled
his children, and woe to the children who are banished from
their father’s table” (Ber. 3a).
R. Simeon b. Yoḥai, a relentless opponent of Roman rule
who had to flee from Roman persecution, was freed from his
hiding place in a cave by Elijah’s announcement that the emperor
had died (Shab. 33b). As the carrier of good tidings for
Israel (cf. the Grace after Meals, in which Elijah is assigned
the function of bringing good news to the Jewish people), Elijah
inevitably became the antithesis of Rome and all it stood
for. Thus, he sharply rebuked R. Ishmael b. Yose who had undertaken
police work on behalf of the Romans: “How long
will you deliver the people of our God for execution?” (BM
83b–84a). Similarly, when the pious R. Joshua b. Levi, who was
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