Tomorrow evening, we observe Selichot, our official kick-off to the High Holy Day season.
Here’s a story I first learned from my colleague, Rabbi Naomi Levy, that can help frame these days.
A wealthy man approached the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, and asked if he could meet Elijah the Prophet, the messenger of God who rose to heaven in a chariot of fire. The man had heard rumors that Elijah wanders the earth to bless people in need of his help.
At first the Baal Shem Tov insisted that he didn’t know how to find Elijah but then one day he said to the man, “You can meet Elijah this Shabbat. Here is what you must do: Fill up your coach with a Shabbat feast. Pack bread, wine, chicken, and vegetables. Pack cakes and fruit and delicacies and bring it all to a certain hut in the forest and ask if you can spend the Shabbat there.”
On Friday afternoon, the wealthy man rode his coach along a winding forest trail until he came upon the hut that the Baal Shem Tov had told him about. He knocked on the door and a husband and wife in tattered clothes answered. The wealthy man asked if he could spend Shabbat with them.
They said that they would be overjoyed to have a Shabbat guest, even though there was barely enough food to go around. Their children giggled with excitement. Then, the wealthy man showed the family the feast which he had brought. For a moment they froze at the sight of such abundance. Then the children cheered and the husband and wife wept with joy.
That Shabbat eve was like no other that this family had ever experienced. They ate, drank, prayed, and sang together. The wealthy man kept staring at the father. Could this be Elijah? He asked the poor man to teach him Torah, but the man replied that he was illiterate. The father ate until his belly was full, he drank and burped and picked his teeth. This was not Elijah. All through that night and the next day, the wealthy man waited impatiently for Elijah to appear–but there was no sign of the holy prophet anywhere.
On Saturday night, as Shabbat came to an end, the wealthy man was fuming. “The Baal Shem Tov deceived me,” he said. “He made a fool of me!” He said his goodbyes to the family and raced outside in a huff. As he was stomping away, the wealthy man’s boot got stuck in the mud. He leaned down to try to pry it loose when he overhead sounds of rejoicing coming from inside the window. The children were jumping up and down and squealing with joy over the most wonderful Shabbat they had ever seen.
The wife said to her husband, “Who was that kind man who brought us all that food?” Her husband replied, “Don’t you see? The man who visited us this Shabbat was none other than Elijah the Prophet!”
Suddenly the wealthy man understood: “Tonight, at least, Elijah is me!”
The New Year is less than a week away. What would it mean to imagine that we are Elijah, sent by God on the most important mission imaginable: to bring healing, forgiveness, hope, and redemption into this troubled world.
If we could believe this–even only for a moment–we would surely dedicate ourselves more fully to becoming better, kinder, more loving, and more generous people.
This Shabbat and, we hope, always, may we all experience moments when we can say: “Elijah is me!”