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.