Shabbat Hagadol

 

Behold I am sending you Elijah the Prophet, before the coming of the Day of the Lord.

 

(The Talmud) asserts that Elijah and Moses also “spoke insolently toward heaven.”  When Elijah said, “For you did turn their heart backward” (I Kings 18:37), he implied that God Himself bore the responsibility for Israel’s lapse into idolatry…The Talmud recognized that prayer is not only an experience of humility and awe, even if this is acknowledged to be the dominant aspect of prayer.  It is also legitimate in prayer to confront God and argue with Him, not merely to plead for mercy and beg for grace.  In prayer, Jews are not restricted to yearning for God’s love; they can make demands upon their Beloved…

David Hartman (Contemporary)

 

Again, he (Rabbi Eliezer) said to them:  “If the law is as I say, let it be proved from heaven.”  Whereupon a heavenly voice cried out: “Why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, seeing that in all matters the law is as he says.”  But Rabbi Joshua arose and exclaimed:  “It is not in heaven” (Deut. 30:12).  What did he mean by this?  Said Rabbi Jeremiah:  “that the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a heavenly voice, because you have long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, “after the majority must one incline’ (Exod. 23:2).  Rabbi Natan met Elijah and asked him “what did the Holy One, blessed be He do at that moment?”  He replied; “He laughed, saying: ‘my sons have defeated me, my sons have defeated Me.”

Bava Metzia 59b (6th Century)

 

Clearly, there can never be a state governed by the Torah.  Such a state would be engaged in a constant struggle to fulfill it, and most likely without success.  Still, the struggle would have to be waged, and this very effort would stamp the state with a religious character.  Obviously, this picture does not fit the state of Israel…The prophet Elijah did not contest the fact that the kingdom of Ahab and Jezebel was the kingdom of Israel and that Ahab was the king of Israel; indeed, it was for this reason that Elijah denounced him.  If he had been a foreign king there would have been no reason to oppose him…Judaism cannot be reconstructed on the basis of this state without ceasing to be a religion.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (20th Century)

 

I call to witness heaven and earth that be one a Jew or a gentile, man or woman, male or female slave, the holy spirits rests upon a person in accordance with his deeds.

Tanya Debe Eliyahu (10th Century)

 

The name of the "Great Sabbath” is derived from the last verse of the weekly haftara reading from the Prophets: "For behold I will send you the Prophet Elijah before the arrival of the Great (gadol) and Awesome Day of G-d" .What connection does Shabbat HaGadol have to this great and awesome day? Shabbat HaGadol is the last Shabbat of the exile, as all await the Redemption from Egypt. The " great day' is the transition from exile to redemption. This verse, which appears at the end of the book of Malachi, the last prophet, the one who bridges the period of clearly perceived Divine Revelation and the period of the exile. The last verse of the last prophet announces the onset of the first rays of light of redemption. This Great Day is in essence, the transition between the two periods, a kind of twilight.

Maharshal (16th Century)