Saturday, March 27, 2021

Happy Passover ~ Next year, in Jerusalem!


Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" sung in Hebrew


And a Passover poem by Marge Piercy, "The cup of Eliyahu" (Elijah in English). On Passover, Eliyahu is said to return to Earth and may drop by for a cup of wine or to herald the Messiah. So at every Seder meal, an extra glass of wine is poured for Eliyahu and the door is opened, in case he should happen by...

The cup of Eliyahu
Passover Cup, Vienna
mid-19th Century 

In life you had a temper.

Your sarcasm was a whetted knife.
Sometimes you shuddered with fear
but you made yourself act no matter
how few stood with you.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
Now you return to us
in rough times, out of smoke
and dust that swirls blinding us.
You come in vision, you come
in lightning on blackness.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
In every generation you return
speaking what few want to hear
words that burn us, that cut
us loose so we rise and go again
over the sharp rocks upward.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
You come as a wild man,
as a homeless sidewalk orator,
you come as a woman taking the bima,
you come in prayer and song,
you come in a fierce rant.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that she may come in.
Prophecy is not a gift, but
sometimes a curse, Jonah
refusing. It is dangerous
to be right, to be righteous.
To stand against the wall of might.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
There are moments for each
of us when you summon, when
you call the whirlwind, when you
shake us like a rattle: then we
too must become you and rise.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that we may come in.

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