Waiting for Elijah – Elijah in the Haggadah

When the Pesach Seder took shape almost two thousand years ago, it made no mention of Elijah the prophet. How did the biblical zealot find his way into the haggadah? Medieval Ashkenazic traditions may hold the key

The bare bones of the Seder are outlined in the Mishna, in the tenth chapter of tractate Pesahim, dating from roughly the third century. There’s not a trace of Elijah the prophet anywhere in that description. The first time he appears as the guest of honor at these proceedings is in haggadot from 15th-century Germany. 

Three customs announce the prophet’s arrival at the Seder, each of which developed separately: pouring him a cup of wine (in addition to the four drunk by all participants); opening the door; and reciting a series of biblical verses beginning with “Pour out Your wrath upon the nations” (Psalms 79:6). In the late Middle Ages, these three independent practices coalesced around Elijah as the herald of the Messiah, emphasizing the evening’s heightened expectation of redemption. All three were performed immediately following the grace after meals, before continuing the reading of Hallel (more psalms) and the conclusion of the Seder. The meal essentially divides the Seder in two. Before dinner we focus on the exodus from Egypt, i.e., on the past, while afterward we allude to the future redemption. Elijah is integral to that salvation, as the biblical book of Malachi tasks him with announcing the Messiah’s arrival: 

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. (Malachi 3:23– 24) 

Since the Middle Ages, Ashkenazic communities have chanted this chapter of Malachi as the weekly selection from the prophets on the Sabbath before Pesach. That Sabbath was known as the “Great Sabbath” well before the custom of reading about the “great and dreadful day of Lord” became entrenched. Nevertheless, the two traditions together likely reinforced the connection between Elijah and Passover. 

 

Night of Watching

The practice of opening the door midway through the Seder apparently dates from the Geonic period (circa 600–1000). The most common medieval explanation ties the custom to the protective nature of this night:

It is a night of watching for the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:42)

The Talmud attributes special qualities to the anniversary of Israel’s exodus throughout history: 

R. Joshua says: In Nisan they were delivered, in Nisan they will be delivered in the time to come. Whence do we know this? Scripture calls [the first night of Passover] ‘a night of watchings’ [shimurim, plural], [meaning] a night continuously watched for from the six days of creation [and] a night under constant protection against evil spirits. (Rosh Ha-shana 11b, Soncino translation)

The month of Nisan, and Seder night in particular, is thus seen as an auspicious time for redemption. Talmudic homilies and liturgical hymns feature other examples of deliverance occurring on this night, sometimes followed by expectations of impending salvation. In fact, an entire genre of liturgical poetry is dedicated to this “night of watching,” with two of these compositions included in the Ashkenazic version of the haggadah: “And So It Came to Pass at Midnight” (Va-yehi Ba-hatzi Ha-laila) by the poet Yanai, who lived in the sixth century in the land of Israel, and “And You Shall Say: This Is the Passover Sacrifice” (Ve-amartem Zevah Pesah) by his pupil Rabbi Eleazar Ha-kalir. 

In his 13th-century work Or Zarua, Rabbi Yitzhak ben Moshe of Vienna links the custom of opening the door to the idea of Seder night as a time of enhanced protection:

Rabbi Nissim Gaon [11th century, Kairouan, Tunisia] wrote in his father’s name that house doors are not to be locked on the [first two] nights of Passover [to demonstrate our] belief in God’s word and promise, that in recompense for that faith we might merit deliverance […]. Thus you find that our forefathers in Egypt were redeemed only as a reward for their faith. As it says, “And the people believed” (Exodus 4:31). So too, in the future the exiles will be gathered in as a reward for [our] faith. (Or Zarua [Mekhon Yerushalayim], vol. 2, p. 298)

Opening the door therefore expresses faith in God’s protection and willingness to act in order to merit His deliverance. It also recalls the biblical command to the Israelites in Egypt to eat the Paschal lamb with their loins girded and their bags packed, ready to depart:

And thus you shall eat it: with a belt around your waist, sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. (Exodus 12:11)

 

Beyond the Open Door

The next stage in the Elijah odyssey connects the opening of the door to the Messiah’s arrival. The 13th-century pietist Rabbi Eleazar of Worms wrote in his Ma’aseh Roke’ah:

I found [written] in a hidden scroll […] that the doors of the home in which we sit should not be closed at all […], and so is our custom to this day; the doors of the home are open, so when Elijah comes we shall come out to greet him swiftly, without delay. (Ma’aseh Roke’ah, p. 19)

The author then quoted the aforementioned opinion of Rabbi Nissim that the faith symbolized by the open door would merit national redemption. Rather than expecting Elijah to enter through that door, those attending the Seder hoped to exit through it upon hearing the prophet announce the approach of the Messiah. Traversing western Europe in the late 12th century, Rabbi Avraham ben Natan Ha-yarhi recorded this custom along with the practice of leaving bedroom doors unlocked all that night.

 

Open and Shut

The sources above imply that the main door to the home was left unlocked all Seder night long in these Diaspora communities. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, the rite was reduced to opening the door for a few minutes. Rabbi Moshe Isserles, author of the Ashkenazic gloss on the Shulhan Arukh (the classic code of Jewish law), quoted Rabbi Israel of Bruna, who led the Jewish community in Regensburg, Bavaria, in the mid-15th century: 

[He] wrote that the door should be opened when [the verse] “Pour out Your wrath” is recited, since the Or Zarua teaches that on the [first] night of Pesach the front doors of houses shouldn’t be locked, it being a night of watching. This [shows] trust in the Holy One Blessed Be He and His promise, in the merit of [which] we will be redeemed. For this reason the door is opened at “Pour out,” meaning that through this [act] the Messiah should come. (Moshe Isserles, Darkei Moshe on Tur, Orah Hayyim, Laws of Pesach 480)

This truncated “open-door policy” may have stemmed from Jews’ growing insecurity in Europe. Their lost confidence belied the custom’s expression of faith in divine protection. The quiet and safety of the “night of watching” was no longer; leaving a door unlocked all night had become dangerous. But rather than abandon the practice altogether, European Jews opened the door only briefly.  

Yet why do so while asking God to pour out His wrath upon the nations? Perhaps the idea was to ensure that no informant was listening at the keyhole. Alternatively, the timing demonstrated that Pesach night remained a time of God’s protection. Though fear of blood libels and other threats kept Jewish doors locked during Pesach, the Jews of Europe could at least open them a crack – whether to show faith despite the dangers, or to avert them.

 

Pour Out Your Wrath

The collection of verses beginning with “Pour out Your wrath” is drawn from various passages beseeching God to punish and even destroy the nations for both rejecting Him and persecuting Israel. This section of the haggadah was added in the early 12th century, probably as a result of the vicious pogroms that targeted Jews during the First Crusade of 1096. Originally, the chosen verses varied between communities. In his ritual code Etz Hayyim, written in England in 1287 (just three years before the Jews were expelled by Edward I), Rabbi Jacob Hazzan of London included seventeen. Today that number has generally settled on four: 

Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that knew You not and upon the kingdoms that called not upon Your Name! For they have consumed Jacob and laid waste his habitation (Psalms 79:6–7).

Pour out Your fury upon them, and may Your burning anger overtake them (ibid. 69:25)!

Pursue them in wrath, and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord (Lamentations 3:66).

Outrage at Christian and particularly ecclesiastical persecution constituted a key element of medieval Jewish identity, as did a hope of salvation and retribution. Rabbi Moshe Met’s 16th-century work of Jewish law, first printed in Kraków, connects the contents of the verses under discussion with the opening of the front door:  

Our custom is to open the door so as to remember that this is a “night of watching,” and in the merit of that faith the Messiah will come and pour out his anger upon the nations. And [this practice is] also to demonstrate our belief in the coming of the Messiah, that we await and hope and expect his arrival despite his delay. In the merit of all this, may the Lord hasten our redemption and pour out His wrath upon the nations. (Mateh Moshe 655)

From the 15th century onward, many illuminated haggadot illustrated the “Pour out Your wrath” passage. The second edition of the Darmstadt Haggadah, for example, depicts heavenly hands pouring flames onto the heads of the nations.

 

Cup of Redemption

The Seder custom of pouring a cup of wine for the prophet Elijah is quite late and its origins are obscure. In the early 1900s, the practice was traced to a Talmudic argument appearing in certain manuscripts of tractate Pesahim (118a), citing an opinion that a fifth cup should be added to the Seder’s accepted four. Traditionally, unresolved halakhic disagreements are left for Elijah to sort out upon his eventual return to earth; until then, in our case, we compromise by pouring a fifth cup but not drinking it. However, the first sources to mention this fifth cup don’t cite this Talmudic principle at all. 

Presumably, then, the fifth cup was another expression of the messianic longing that infuses so much of the Seder. A Tosafist Bible commentary from the 12th or 13th century explains the stages of redemption symbolized in the cups of wine:

Four cups for four [expressions of] deliverance: “I shall take [you] out […], I shall save […], I shall redeem […]. And I shall take [you unto Myself]” (Exodus 6:6–7). The fifth cup, according to those who require it, is for [the expression] “I shall bring [you to the land]” (v. 8), since that too is an aspect of redemption. (Da’at Zekenim [Leghorn, 5543], p. 34a)

The fifth cup of wine is associated with the act of bringing the Children of Israel into the Holy Land, but it came to represent not past but future. Still in the throes of exile, caught between past and future redemptions, Jews in medieval Europe poured the fifth cup but didn’t drink it. To them, the full cup of wine on the table symbolized the deliverance yet to come. 

  In her research on Elijah’s Cup, Dr. Tal Goiten proposed that ritual cups gained significance in 15th-century Germany following changes made to the Catholic mass by the Hussite movement. Based on the teaching of Czech theologian Jan Hus, all those attending mass would partake of the consecrated cup of wine symbolizing the blood of Jesus – a privilege heretofore reserved for priests. The cup became the emblem of the Hussite movement, appearing on its standard together with the words Veritas vincit, “Truth shall prevail.” Many Jews perceived the Hussite reforms hopefully, as signifying apocalyptic shifts in the Church and, therefore, indicating the approaching redemption of Israel, Thus, Goiten maintains that the connotations of the goblet of wine on the Seder table were amplified, and it served as a more prominent reminder of the anticipated deliverance from exile.

 

Elijah’s Cup

The earliest mention of a cup being poured specifically for Elijah the prophet is a passing reference by 15th-century German rabbi Aaron Halevi Zion (known as Zelikman of Binga) in his commentary on Pesahim:

I have seen some people on Passover night who pour a special cup, place it on the table, and proclaim it the cup of Elijah the prophet, and I do not know where this explanation comes from. It would seem that the reason is as follows: Should Elijah come on Passover night, as we hope and anticipate […], he too requires a cup – for even the poorest among Israel may not drink fewer than four cups [on this night]. (Innovations, Explanations, and Decisions of Rabbi Zelikman of Binga, p. 195 [Hebrew])

Somewhat later, Rabbi Yiftah Yosef (Juspa) Schammes,17th-century beadle of the Worms Jewish community, wrote similarly:

Whoever washes the cups [should wash] one more than the number of those seated, because [we] recite, “Whomsoever is hungry, let him come and eat,” and therefore he should prepare one cup for any guest who enters. That cup is called the cup of Elijah the prophet, for he is the guest we await. (Juspa Schammes, Customs of the Holy Congregation of Worms, vol. 1, pp. 85–86 [Hebrew]) 

Juspa then explained why Elijah appears in the haggadah’s illustrations, or perhaps in other pictures set aside for use on Seder night:

Before beginning [to recite] “Pour out,” the door is opened and Elijah and the Messiah are welcomed, because wherever the name of Elijah is mentioned, the evil spirits flee. This is why it’s customary in certain places to draw the Messiah and Elijah, so the children who see the picture will pronounce Elijah’s name and put the evil spirits to flight. (ibid., p. 87)

The idea that Elijah banishes evil spirits brings us back to Seder night as a time of “watching,” but with the prophet rather than God protecting Israel. (Amulets bearing his name were likewise placed beside birthing women and their newborns to ward off the demon Lilith.)

These three elements – the open door, the reading of “Pour out Your wrath,” and the untouched cup of wine – appear in illuminated haggadot from Germany and northern Italy from around 1430 onward. This motif coincides with the testimonies quoted above linking all three to Elijah the prophet. Some fifteen manuscript haggadot and incunabula include illustrations of the Messiah’s arrival and the beginning of Israel’s final redemption. Most of these feature an open door and a cup of wine, and some also show Elijah walking before the Messiah. Sometimes the prophet blows a ram’s horn to announce this long-awaited event, and sometimes he’s depicted as a dog faithfully guarding Israel. (See “Watchdog of Israel,” above.)

 

Why Elijah?

Why this focus on Elijah, harbinger of the Messiah, and not on the Messiah himself?

Very possibly, the tradition of Elijah’s presence has been transferred from the circumcision ceremony on the eighth day of a baby boy’s life. Circumcision and Pesach are closely linked in Jewish law. An uncircumcised male is forbidden to partake of the Passover sacrifice, and a verse from the book of Ezekiel is pronounced during both the Seder and circumcision: “I said to you: ‘Live in spite of your blood’; yea, I said to you: ‘Live in spite of your blood’” (ibid. 16:6). According to the sages, the repetition in this quotation refers to two types of blood: that of circumcision and that of the Paschal lamb. 

A related interpretation appears in the Jerusalem Targum (a biblical translation and commentary written in the seventh or eighth century and also known as the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum). Regarding the relevant verses in Exodus 12, the Targum states that in preparation for the night God smote the Egyptian firstborn but passed over the houses of the Israelites, the Hebrews marked their homes by smearing both types of blood on their doorposts. Observance of these two commandments, circumcision and the Passover offering, is said to guarantee the Jewish people’s survival and salvation.

For medieval European Jews, Elijah’s zealous efforts to restore Israel’s faith in God were deeply connected to their own self-sacrifice for Jewish tradition despite constant Christian pressure to abandon it. In their view, their meticulous observance of the Seder – including opening the front door despite the risk and showing themselves ready to set out after the Messiah – proved them worthy of redemption.

Yet the Messiah was part of some distant future far removed from their own reality. Elijah, however, shuttling between this world and the next, an unseen witness at every circumcision ceremony, was more familiar. Not confined to merely heralding the Messiah’s arrival, the prophet was invoked whenever help mysteriously arrived to rescue Jews. 

In the early modern period, multiple Jewish folk tales revolved around Elijah’s appearance on Pesach to bring respite to individuals or groups. Similarly, the tradition of his attendance at the Seder expanded from Germany to other communities. In the 17th century, it became customary for one Seder participant to masquerade as Elijah and step into the house when the door was opened:

Especially good and praiseworthy is the custom of performing some act to perpetuate the memory of the Messiah, such as someone popping in through the door when [recitation of] “Pour out” commences, demonstrating that on the night of our first redemption, our faith in our final redemption remains strong. (Joseph Yuspa Nördlinger Hahn, Yosif Ometz [Frankfurt, 1723], sec. 788)

It has been suggested that the character of Elijah grew even more tangible amid the traumas of Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s Cossack uprising and pogroms in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1648. At the same time, the Sabbatean heresy as well as the spread of Lurianic Kabbala intensified messianic expectations. Even today, some reserve a place at the Seder table for Elijah, just as a chair is reserved for him at circumcisions (and in the sukka). 

The practice of pouring a fifth cup of wine for Elijah the prophet extended beyond Ashkenazic communities, as evident from a responsum by Rabbi Moshe Hagiz (1671–1750, Jerusalem), whose family came to the land of Israel from Morocco. Jews from many diasporas coexisted in 18th-century Jerusalem, and the rabbi was asked by a puzzled observer to explain the Italian and German Jewish custom of pouring this cup, “which seems a foreign matter among Israel without root or branch, for who has ever mentioned the name of Elijah in connection with Seder night?” (Rabbi Moshe Hagiz, Shtei Ha-lehem [1898], p. 100). Rabbi Hagiz responded:

Preparing a cup for Elijah, may his name be a blessing, is both deeply rooted and widespread. Surely you have heard before now why a seat is set aside for Elijah at the time of circumcision, and why he is called Elijah messenger of the covenant – namely,  this is his reward, since the same mouth that transgressed by accusing Israel of betraying [God’s] covenant should also be the mouth that affirms and testifies in defense of Israel, witnessing firsthand that Israel is upholding the covenant. [He should] pronounce the praises of Israel and proclaim before the Holy One Blessed Be He that [the Jews] are fulfilling that which they undertook by way of the commandment of Pesach, which is dependent on circumcision. […] Elijah shall surely enter all the houses of Israel to see how [the Jews] fulfill that one commandment which is in fact two – Pesach and circumcision – and [he] will ascend heavenward to recommend the swift redemption and ransom of the soul of every last individual of Israel in the final salvation […]. May it come to pass speedily in our days, Amen. (ibid.)

Although he hadn’t grown up with the custom, Rabbi Hagiz instinctively connected the twin commandments of covenant – circumcision and Pesach – with the legend appointing Elijah to witness how the people of Israel remain faithful to God. The herald of Messiah also serves as the loyal defender of Israel in heaven, hastening redemption in the merit of the nation’s deeds. How fitting, then, that Elijah has become an integral part of the Seder night, when we await Israel’s salvation.