New Prayers to Welcome Passover and Elijah
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Dear friends,
Every year, on the Shabbat before Passover, we read a remarkable passage from the very last of the ancient Hebrew prophets. It could easily be read as prophesying global scorching: “a day that burns like a furnace” — and the use of solar energy from the sun as a remedy — and the need for elders and youth to open their hearts to each other to save Earth from utter desolation.
We recommend using the texts that follow, the first to light the candles at the start of Pesach, and then later in the Seder, to use the second to welcome Elijah into the Seder. Shalom and the coming goot yontif!
— Arthur
I. A Kavanah for Kindling Candles of Commitment
We light these candle-fires
To light the path toward life and liberation.
Before us we among all life-forms
face the nightmare of a Flood of Fire,
The heat and smoke that could consume all Earth.
“Here! The day is coming,”
Said the Prophet Malachi,
“That will flame like a furnace,
Says YHWH / Yahhhh —
The Infinite InterBreath of Life —
when all the arrogant, all evil-doers,
root and branch,
will like straw be burnt to ashes
in the fires that they set.
Yet for all who revere
My Interbreathing Name, Yahhhh,
a sun of justice will arise
with healing in the beating of its wings,
its rays, its winds.”
We ourselves are coming
To douse that outer all-consuming fire.
We must light again in our own hearts
the inner fire of love and liberation
that burned in the Burning Bush —
The fire that did not destroy the Bush it burned in,
For love is strong as death —
Love’s Fire must never be extinguished —
The fire in the heart of all Creation.
We light these candles to make from inner fire
Not an all-consuming blaze
But the loving light in which we see more clearly
The Rainbow Covenant glowing
in the many-colored faces of all life.
Light the candles and then say these blessings:
Blessed be You, Breath of Life, Creative Force of the world, who makes us holy through connection with each other and all life, and at this moment connects us with the kindling of light for the Festival of Freedom.
Blessed be You, Breath of Life, Creative Force of the world, Who fills us with life, lifts us up, and carries us to this moment.
II: Opening the Door to Welcome Elijah
“Here! Before the coming
of the great and awesome day
of YHWH / the Breath of Life,
I will send you the Prophet Elijah
to turn the hearts of elders to the youth
and the hearts of youth to elders,
lest I come and smite all earth with utter desolation.”
Here! we ourselves are coming
Before that great and terrible day
Of smiting Earth —
For we ourselves shall turn the hearts
Of youth and elders to each other.
So that this day of smiting
Does not fall upon us.