Patah Eliyahu - Learning From Elijah the Prophet

The Second Introduction to the Tikunei Zohar – Part 2 (TZ 17a)

As mentioned last week, the second introduction to the TZ has three parts. A description of the gathering, an opening statement from the heavenly group and an opening statement from the group on earth. Although my plan for this year is to post one entry for each 4-page block of text, because of the centrality of this introduction text I will post an entry for each of its parts. This is the second entry, dedicated to the opening statement of the heavenly group.

Elijah the prophet, of blessed memory, opened and said:

Master of all worlds,

You who are one, but can never be counted,

You are the highest of all high,

The innermost of all who are enclosed one within another.

(Tikunei Zohar 17a)

Elijah's entire statement as translated by Danny Matt

2^nd Kings, chapter 2, describes the prophet Elijah’s passing not as death, but rather as being taken to heaven on a fiery chariot and horses. Ever since, Elijah has been portrayed as a Hermes-like figure moving between the worlds of the angels and the humans. It is therefore not surprising that Elijah serves as the spokesman for the group of supernal beings, angels and souls, who have come to learn with R Shimeon and his friends.

It is however striking that he does not address the gathered group, earthly or heavenly. He rather addresses the entire statement to God, the word “You” addressing God being repeated numerous times.

This in itself might be the first and most important thing Elijah has to say. The content of Elijah’s statement is a description of God, mostly addressing the challenge of understanding and relating to an infinite presence within a finite universe. It is easy to imagine it as a theology lesson. Indeed, the text of Elijah’s statement is often taught as a lesson in the theology of the Zohar or an introduction to the system of Sefirot. But in the story itself Elijah is not teaching, in the sense that he is not talking to those assembled. He is speaking directly to God in the presence of the gathered assembly.

What kind of speech is this?

I will offer two ways to understand what Elijah is doing.

One of the early rabbinic texts that addresses what comes to be called Jewish mysticism is the mishnah at the beginning of the second chapter of tractate Ḥagigah.

The topic of forbidden intimacy should not be expounded (dorshin) in the presence of three people,

Nor the story of creation (ma’ase bereshit) in the presence of two

Nor the workings of the divine chariot (ma’ase merkavah) in the presence of one, unless it is a wise person who understands on their own.

(Mishnah Ḥagigah 2:1)

Simply put, the Mishnah is setting limitations on the public teaching of particular topics. A great deal has been written in the attempt to both define these topics and understand the limitations, and I cannot enter that conversation here. I will focus only on the last category, “the workings of the divine chariot”. This phrase alludes to Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 1) and comes to relate to visions, speculations and teachings on the nature of the divine. There is however something of a paradox in the limitations set on this topic. What is this material that you are only supposed to teach to someone who already understands it, and how does one come to that understanding if it cannot be taught?

Another text from the same period offers an example of what this might look like:

A story about Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who was traveling on the road, riding a donkey. Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh, walked behind him, directing the animal.

He (REBA) said: Master, teach me a section of the workings of the divine chariot.

He (RYBZ) said: have I not taught you - “nor the workings of the divine chariot (ma’ase merkavah) in the presence of one, unless it is a wise person who understands on their own”?

He said: Master, allow me to say in your presence something that you taught me.

Speak, said Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, and immediately dismounted, wrapped himself in his robe and sat on a stone under an Olive tree.

He (REBA) said: Master, why have you dismounted from the donkey?

He said: when you expound on the workings of the divine chariot, the divine presence is here with us, and the ministering angels accompany us – how could I be riding a donkey?

Immediately, Rabbi Elazar ben Arakh opened, teaching the workings of the divine chariot. Fire came down from heaven and surrounded the trees in the field, and the trees all began singing. They sang: “Praise HVYH, you who are on earth, sea-monsters and the ocean depths… fruit trees and all cedars… Hallelujah!” (Psalms 148)

An angel responded from within the fire and said: These, these are the workings of the divine chariot. And Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai stood, kissed his (REBA) head and said: Blessed is HVYH the God of Israel, who gave our ancestor Abraham a descendant who knows and understands and seeks out and expounds the workings of the divine chariot…

(Bavli, Hagigah 14b)

There are a few interesting details to notice in this story.

When REBA asks to be taught the workings of the chariot, he is refused. But when he reframes the question, asking to speak in his teacher’s presence, he describes what he wants to say as “something you taught me”. As RYBZ’s response (dismounting, etc.) demonstrates, they both understand that he is about to discuss the workings of the chariot. But if RYBZ has refused to teach this to him, how is his own expounding of the workings of the chariot “something you taught me”?

I would propose, that “the secret of the chariot” is not exclusively a specific content that can be taught by a teacher and repeated by a student. It is rather a quality of learning, the capacity to learn in such a way that actually brings the divine presence into the experience of learning. It may be that the texts of Ezekiel were often used as a base for this practice, but that is not the main point. The main point is the quality of learning in God’s presence, and this cannot be taught as a topic. It is rather learned by the student following their teacher carefully in the way they live daily life, the way they pick up a book at sit down to learn, the way they pray and the way they treat their students. It is in watching all of this that the student learns how to speak Torah in God’s presence. REBA’s words are therefore precise. He is asking to demonstrate something that he has learned by being the student of RYBZ, but that RYBZ has never taught him formally. REBA’s test is not if he can say the words correctly. It is if God will be present in his learning, which the fire, the singing trees and the angel proved to be the case.

This understanding is the basis of the18th century Hasidic story about the first meeting of the Maggid of Mezeritch and the Ba’al Shem Tov (Besht). In this story the Besht asks the Maggid to read and explain a text from the Lurianic Etz Hayyim, which the Maggid does with technical mastery. But when the Besht reads the same text, the Maggid actually sees the angels and divine powers discussed in the text flying around the room, and following this experience he becomes the Besht’s disciple.

It is possible that in the TZ Elijah is doing something similar. In speaking to God, rather than about God, Elijah is evoking God’s presence. And he is not telling God anything God does not already know. In a series of shifting metaphors, he describes the eternal and unlimited nature of God flowing through structures (tikkunim) that exist within boundaries. The challenge for us as learners is not only if we can understand the words and the metaphors. After doing that – can we enter that flow and experience Elijah speaking in God’s presence (as did REBA)?

Another way of framing what Elijah is doing, is to say that by addressing God directly he is collapsing the distinction between the practices of Torah-study and prayer. Elijah’s statement (known as “Patah Eliyahu” after its first words) found its way into prayer books in the 16^th and 17^th century, and at the end of R Hayyim Y.D. Azulai’s Moreh B’etzba (printed in Livorno 1842) there is an instruction to say it immediately upon entering the synagogue before any prayer. The Ben Ish Hai (R Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad, 1835-1909) who is widely followed in middle eastern communities recommended saying it at all kinds of opportunities, and Professor Avi Elqayam has commented that in doing so, the Ben Ish Hai created a practice in which “Patah Eliyhu” functions in the same way as “Al-Fatihah” (the opening sura of the Quran) functioned in the surrounding Muslim milieu.

Patah Eliyahu in a contemporary Siddur

What makes this text transform so easily into liturgy is that Elijah says these words in a relationship with God. Elijah’s model reflects an understanding of the act of Talmud Torah as both giving and receiving. Whether we learn Torah from a book or from a person, from an ancient or a new source, we are always receiving Torah from God. This is why the blessing for Torah study, included in the morning liturgy, ends with: “Blessed are you HVYH, who teaches Torah to Her people, Yisrael”. To study Torah as a relationship with God is to hold in your consciousness that we are always learning Torah from HVYH. And when we take the Torah that we have received and integrated into our own lives and put it into speech we are offering our lives and the Torah that comes of them to God. This does not imply that you must find something “original” to say every time you speak Torah. Even when you repeat the exact same words that you received, you are channeling them through your body and soul and your life, which are a manifestation of God that never existed before you and will never exist again after you. In the relationship of Torah, we are always both givers and receivers. Even while my teacher or my hevruta is giving words of Torah to God, I, who am listening, am receiving those words of Torah from God, for it is always - “HVYH, who teaches Torah to Her people, Yisrael”.

You do not have to open your learning with the phrase “master of all worlds”, as Elijah does, to make this true. But Elijah opens the learning of TZ this way to remind us that this is the practice of Talmud Torah, the learning that the TZ aspires to.

This then is my understanding of the opening statement of Elijah. He is here to tell us that the learning that happens between the covers of the Tikunei Zohar, the learning that you are invited to join on its pages, is not primarily about accumulating knowledge. The words, spoken, written down, and read, are a structure (a tikkun, as Elijah calls it) meant to evoke and hold the divine presence in your life. Practice listening to the divine voice teaching you through the words of the text and those of your study partner if you are fortunate enough to have one. Offer the words of learning that you say as a prayer, a gift of Torah to God – “for it all comes from You, and from your hand we give to You” (1^st Chronicles, 29:14). Then you too will be sitting at the table along with Elijah, Rabbi Shimeon bar Yohai, and all the learners from all the generations.