The Threshold of the Cave of Eliyahu is an image for the place or state in which we encounter the Divine. It bears a profound connection with the Cleft in the Rock in which Moshe Rabbeinu heard the Divine Attributes, and also with the prophetic discourse which he engaged in whilst in the Tent of Meeting. But even more remarkably, we can share all those encounters, to some degree at least, when we stand at the threshold of our own Tent...our own interior Cave.... and realise that by our attention to the still small voice, we can stand with them (as it were) and thus we can prepare the way for the return of Prophecy to Am Yisrael.
והיה כבא משה האהלה ירד עמוד הענן ועמד פתח האהל ודבר עם־משה: וראה כל־העם את־עמוד הענן עמד פתח האהל וקם כל־העם והשתחוו איש פתח אהלו:
This passage describes a communal liturgy which took place in the period between the destruction of the golden calf and the erection of the Desert Sanctuary. It would seem possible from Shemot 33:7 that Moshe Rabbeinu had set up a special ‘Tent of Meeting’ outside the camp specifically for his private contemplative prayer. This tent was guarded by Yehoshua who seems to have been in full-time retreat there (Shemot 33:11) and so it may have had a wider cultic usage.
We read of the liturgy to which I refer in Shemot 33:8-11: As Moshe Rabbeinu leaves the community to speak with G-d in the Tent, he is respectfully observed by all the Israelites who are positioned in prayer at their own tent doors. When Moshe Rabbeinu enters the Tent of Meeting, the Pillar of Cloud descends and takes up a position at the threshold of the Tent of Meeting. At this point the community prostrates in worship while facing the Pillar of Cloud as before, with each one at the door of his own tent.[i]
I hope that the reader is immediately aware of the important resonances between this biblical passage and the symbolism of the Maarat Ha-Lev, for it is significant that the intimate prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu initiates the appearance of the Cloud at the threshold of the tent of meeting, and doubly significant that Moshe Rabeinu’s intimate hitbodedut is mirrored by that of the individual members of the community who share in Moshe Rabeinu’s communion at the threshold of their own dwellings. The prayer of the People is thus bound to the prayer of the Tzaddik. The Divine Presence is being revealed at the various thresholds according to the capacity and specific perception of each individual.
The Presence inside the Tent is simultaneously active (i) in the form of the cloud at the Tent threshold and (ii) as the synchronised communion taking place in the hearts of each Israelite as they prostrate themselves at their own tent doors. Time and space are somehow blurred and fused in this liturgical-contemplative event. Reading this extract gives me an overwhelming vertigo-like sensation of awe at the way the Torah has here decribed the fusion of the Olamim and the communal yet paradoxically individual nature of G-d’s revelation to Israel.
From all of the above, it certainly provides a remarkably good model for Jewish contemplative prayer. It might also, one day, be taken as a model for communal silent hitbonenut in Jewish eremetic communities or retreat centres.
The significance of the threshold, (the doorway of a tent or the mouth of a cave) is something which links the biblical liturgy with the Theophany to Moshe Rabbeinu in the cleft of the rock; with the Theophany to Eliyahu at the mouth of his cave; and with the Kodesh HaKodoshim declaration of the Divine Name on Yom Kippur. In a sense—these events are all one.
The interior of the Tent of Meeting may be said to represent the ‘realm’ of G-d Himself. The Pillar of Cloud may be said to represent the Shechinah, G-d’s Presence as we encounter it. This encounter takes place for us at the point represented by the door of the Tent of Meeting. The door of our own tent—our own interior centre of prayer—is present, in some way, at exactly that same point when we worship.
Moshe Rabbeinu is said to have spoken with G-d ‘Face to face’ inside the Tent of Meeting. Each of us is encouraged by the possibility of such Human/Divine contact and that is suggested symbolically in the Torah text because there we read that the ordinary Israelite faced in the direction of the Tent of Meeting and followed Moshe Rabbeinu’s lead, thus sharing in the contact despite spiritual and spatial distance.
When we pray as Jewish Contemplatives, we have located ourselves at the threshold of the Tent of Meeting by having oriented ourselves in that same supernatural direction. We are, as it were, standing at the ‘point’ inside the Pillar of Cloud which is the Maarat Ha-Lev, the Cave of the Heart. We are standing at the threshold of that ‘cave’ looking inward. Our focus is on a process, an event, an encounter that takes place within our souls.
When you imagine Eliyahu Ha Navi standing at the mouth of the cave listening to the kol d’mamah dakah (still small voice), do you imagine him standing at the cave’s entrance, looking out at a dramatically expansive panoramic landscape?
If you do, you are maybe missing a significant detail which makes it quite clear that his attention and vision was actually directed inward: The Biblical text tells us that he had wrapped his face in the prophetic mantle. His focus was inward-looking.
The text in question is a familiar and especially significant one for all Jewish Contemplatives:
“And after the fire, there came a still small voice. And when Eliyahu heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out, and stood at the mouth of the cave.” [ii]
Eliyahu had encountered the earthquake,wind and fire within the cave of his own mind—and then on hearing the first ‘sound’ of the Voice he moves to the threshold of the spiritual cave of contemplation and faces into it. The cave is now filled with a ‘concentrated’ form of the Divine Presence that has usurped the inner turmoil of the symbolic earthquake, wind, and fire. It is thus an image of the way the contemplative seeks/is inspired to make room for the Divine through bitul ha yesh (self-nullification). There is a tradition that Moshe Rabbeinu’s cleft in the rock and Eliyahu’s cave were one and the same.[iii]
Their attentive focus, and their revelation experience was internal rather than something they were watching, as it were, on a cosmic cinema screen outside the cave. They were inside the cave of their hearts—and simultaneously, at the core of the Divine Presence. The prophetic mantle of Eliyahu and the Divine Hand which blocked Moshe Rabbeinu’s gaze (in Shemot 33) both underline the introspective nature of the experience.
Significantly, the Gemara in Megillah 19b positions both Prophets inside the cave at the time of the Divine Revelation:
“Had there been left open a crack so much as the size of a small sewing needle in the cave in which Moses and Elijah stood when God’s glory was revealed to them…they would not have been able to endure it due to the intense light that would have entered that crack.”
If you would follow me for a moment into that description in the Gemara, I would like to suggest a possibility, just a possibility, that we are here reading a description of the Presence of G-d as simultaneously filling a space (the interior of the cave), the interior world of the prophetic soul, and (incomprehensible to us) as the One who fills all worlds but is contained by none of them.
oooOooo
Turning now to examine the powerful connection between the Mosaic-Elijan Cave and the Holy of Holies in the Desert Sanctuary and Temple:
Parshat Pekudei describes a special moment in the dedication of the Mishkan as follows:
“So Moshe finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the Glory of the Lord filled the tent. And Moshe was not able to enter into the tent of meeting, because the Cloud rested there, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tent.” [iv]
In the Haftarah reading attached to Parshat Pekudei we read of the dedication of the Second Temple in Yerushalayim:
“And it came to pass, when the priests had come out of the Holy Place, that the Cloud filled the House of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the Cloud: for the Glory of the Lord filled the House of the Lord.” [v]
I was immediately struck by the way that the ‘descent’ of the Divine Presence in the Mishkan and the Beit HaMikdash caused such an overwhelming sense of Yirah[vi] in Moshe Rabeinu, Shlomo HaMelech[vii], and their attendants that they had to flee the enclosure. Perhaps this is exactly what made Eliyahu HaNavi move to the ‘threshold’ of the cave. Was the encounter almost too intense to be bearable?
The descriptive terms ‘Cloud’ (Anan) and ‘Glory’ (K’vod) used in the two scriptural texts just quoted are terms relating to G-d’s Presence. In making the following comments about the Elijan experience, I will refer to both using the term ‘The Presence’ for a moment, as I try to demonstrate how my thoughts developed:
At the start of each of three narratives
(i) Moshe Rabbeinu and his team had just completed the construction and ritual dedication ceremonies of the Mishkan;
(ii)Shlomo HaMelech’s team had just completed the construction and dedication of the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem;
(iii)Eliyahu had been seeking G-d desperately in the activity of earthquake, wind and fire but had neither found G-d nor made G-d a dwelling place.
Then:
(i) The Presence descends upon the Mishkan in the form of a cloud and totally fills it;
(ii) The Presence descends upon the Temple of Shlomo HaMelech in the form of a cloud and totally fills it;
(iii) The Presence fills the cave (or Eliyahu’s mind) in the form of a Voice.
We might observe that the reactions of the human participants in each narrative are very similar: (i) Moshe Rabbeinu cannot enter the Tent any more as The Presence is overpowering; (ii)Shlomo HaMelech’s priests cannot remain in the Temple Sanctuary as The Presence is overpowering; (iii) Eliyahu HaNavi cannot bear the power of The Presence inside the cave and he does two things, he covers his face and he moves to get out of the cave fast.
In each of these three narratives, the human protagonists are now standing at the threshold of the ‘Place where The Presence is’. In all three cases they are facing The Presence but unable to be ‘in it’. Yet being at the threshold they are susceptible to its radiation outwards, so in some sense they are in an intimate relationship with it.
Immediately after the quoted verse, Shlomo Ha Melech says: “The Lord has said that He would dwell in the thick darkness”.[viii] The Temple priests see nothing but an impenetrable cloud (Arafel). Moshe Rabbeinu has already ‘seen’ more than anyone before or since, yet even he is aware that the particular extended revelation he (and all Israel) is experiencing is beyond his power to bear at close proximity.
And Eliyahu? He has seen nothing, yet he covers his face with his mantle. The Presence is heard and not seen. Similarly, when Moshe Rabeinu stands in the cleft of the rock, the Hand of G-d blocks his sight.
The Presence is heard .[ix]
Moshe and Eliyahu have each covered their eyes because they are in a state of Divinely infused contemplation. They are ‘seeing the sounds’ of Sinai.[x]
I would like to comment on the content of the vocal revelation to Eliyahu:
The Voice which Eliyahu heard came with a persistent question,
מה־לך פה אליהו
What are you doing here,Eliyahu?[xi]
According to my perspective, this is not a reprimand questioning his retreat from zealous activity and social engagement. Far from it. The mah l’cha po? question of the Voice of Horeb can be regarded as a reprimand to a man avoiding a call to a more contemplative lifestyle.
Eliyahu HaNavi, the fiery prophet of Carmel was without doubt a model fundamentalist zealot. Like many other prophets he was an aggressive defendant of his own G-d and his massacre of the prophets of Baal on Carmel stands as one of the most brutal incidents of slaughter in the Bible.
In Haftarah Pinchas we read how Eliyahu had challenged the prophets of Baal to a duel. Each had to prepare an altar and an offering to their deity and the team whose offering burst into flames would be declared the winner. At Mount Carmel, Eliyahu’s prayer was dramatically answered by fire and he concluded his display by slaughtering everyone of the false prophets. Zealotry certainly. Eliyahu flees for his life from Yezevel, who was far from impressed with this outcome, and within moments of his triumph Eliyahu slumps into suicidal depression.[xii]
Fortunately he was refreshed by the shade of a tree, water and freshly baked angel’s cake.
Thus rested and fortified Eliyahu went on to Mount Horeb (Sinai). There Eliyahu enters a Cave where The Voice confronts him with the question we are considering.
Most Jewish commentators on the place of this question in the Eliyahu story seem to read it with the inflection: “What on earth are you doing here, hiding away and wasting your time meditating when you should be up and doing?”
I read it as: “What on earth are you doing here, fretting and dwelling on the past, being self-congratulatory one minute then focusing on your failings and anxieties the next. You are spending your time here in self observation when what you should be doing is listening to My Voice. This Cave is a place of meeting. A place of mission not escape.”
Let me explain where my perspective comes from—I would suggest that Eliyahu’s answer is both apologetic and panic-ridden, and that it reflects a truth he wishes to avoid.
Paraphrasing his tripartite reply in I Melachim 19, here is Eliyahu’s evasive response:
(i) I have been very zealous for You;
(ii) I am the only loyal Israelite left, the others are unfaithful;
(iii) I came here because they were trying to kill me for what I did.
One might identify those responses as representing:
(i) his over compensation for insecurity in melodramatic action;
(ii) his delusions of self-importance masking those insecurities;
(iii) his fundamental paranoia.
The Voice is not satisfied with this answer and responds by replying with three symbolic events or experiences which are called Wind, Earthquake, and Fire. To my understanding these are the embodiment of the self-focussed psychological issues which Eliyahu had been pondering inside the cave (of his mind), and they might be unpacked as: the Wind of futile activity to mask a lack of understanding or facing up to facts; the Earthquake of destructive or negative speech and actions which do not create anything; and the Fire of violent and uncontrolled extremism.
In each case the biblical text tells us that G-d was not in any of these. At this point the question “What are you doing here, Eliyahu?” is repeated.
I would like to suggest that the Voice which questions Eliyahu in I Melachim 19: 9 is not quite the same Voice that he encounters in I Melachim 19: 12 even though its descriptive text is identical.
The first time Eliyahu hears the question, he is listening to the Dvar HaShem (Word of G-d) as it begins to enter his troubled mind. It is the classic voice of conscience that he is struggling with. It is predominantly a function of his own mental ruminations. The second time he hears the question it is described as coming from the Kol d’mamah dakah (still small voice). These two voices share the same Divine source but they are as distinctly nuanced as the Presence over the Ark and the Pillar of Cloud at the threshold were in the Mishkan.
The Kol d’mamah dakah is the infused revelation of the Divine Voice which is capable of overpowering all the human obstacles we might care to place in its path (however surreptitiously) whenever it comes too close us with its burning Truth.
Eliyahu’s shocking but understandable reaction to the approach of the Vocal Presence of the Kol d’mamah dakah is to blather his flustered three-part answer a second time and (in my reading) he thus fails the test—he is dismissed from the cave of meeting, from the mountain of contemplative intimacy, from his prophetic post—and shortly afterwards, in verse 19, he is retired and passes on his prophetic mantle to Elisha.[xiii]
I believe the voice of his conscience was telling him that (specifically for him) the way of peace and a life of contemplation were superior to the bustling activism of his political career. I am not saying here that ‘contemplative lives’ are superior per se—only that Eliyahu was, I believe, called to a more contemplative and peaceable lifestyle than the one he had followed.
In the biblical narrative, Eliyahu did not die but was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot.
Eliyahu the warrior prophet, the zealot fundamentalist, hears a fragile but insistent voice: not in earthquake,wind, or fire—but in silent retreat. The violence of his ‘first’ life is burnt out in the chariot’s ascent. He becomes an archetype. As a result of this purifying closing chapter to his earthly life, Eliyahu HaNavi becomes the father of all contemplatives who seek the revelation he only experienced as his life was coming to a close.
In the biblical tradition, long after his passing he is described as being the herald of the messiah[xiv] and is described, somewhat mysteriously, as being the one who will “turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers”[xv]
Perhaps the fathers referred to are an overly inflexible tradition and the children are its permissible development and flowering. Perhaps the text is speaking of the balance and compromises which both types of Jew will need to make as the stabilising authority of one needs to be respected just as much as the envigorating new-growth of the other.
According to traditional legend in his ‘second’ archetypal life he has become Eliyahu the Comforter and Eliyahu the Peacemaker. In that post-biblical legendary tradition he appears as the one who rescues the Jewish community, as one who tests the charity and forbearance of Jews by appearing as a needy beggar or an often tiresome and puzzling old man; and he attends every circumcision to comfort and effect healing. Interestingly, the Midrash states that he attends every circumcision as a kind of reparative penance because he claimed to be so zealous and had criticised Israel for not being meticulous in observing the covenant of the brit. [xvi]
In a very special sense, Eliyahu is the father of all Jewish Contemplatives. We are, as it were, the Descendants of Eliyahu the childless. I would suggest that what he realised too late in the cave is a task we develop and perhaps even embody ourselves today.
Perhaps when we stand at the mouth of the cave which is the Maarat Ha-lev, to some we may appear to have turned our back to the world, but that is only appearance. Priests and levites faced the Sanctuary but that is not to say they were turning their backs on society. They were facing the Aron HaKodesh (Ark) because their vocational focus was entirely on G-d. In maintaining this focus they simultaneously bore the needs and the prayer intentions of the nation on their shoulders in an attempt to offer a prayer of atonement and healing.
As children of Eliyahu, we cover our eyes with Eliyahu’s mantle. You can take that literally and regard yourself as one who hopes to receive a portion of his contemplative spirit as did Elisha. Or you can take it more generally as meaning that when you stand before G-d in prayer, you are demonstrating or declaring the same awe as Eliyahu did. You can take it practically and imitate both his gesture and his intention when you pray under your tallit. Beneath that mantle, with our eyes closed, we stand in prayer ‘facing’ The Presence. Though our perception of The Presence is always filtered by an almost impenetrable cloud, we too can still hope to see G-d’s Voice.
Like Eliyahu,we too can allow ourselves to be waylaid by distractions, self-obesession, or anxieties and may fail to hear what the still small voice is really demanding of us. We should not fail that test of the Earthquake, Wind, and Fire.
The Dedicated Jewish Contemplative, the Mitkarev, may appear to be facing away from other people in solitude, but in the very next moment our inner vision can turn as we begin to see through G-d’s eyes, back into our own world. At this point spatial or geographical direction is actually irrelevant: As we are at the threshold of the Mishkan, the threshold of the core of the Beit HaMikdash, the threshold of the Maarat Ha-Lev : we are enveloped in the outpouring radiance of the Shechinah and we ourselves can become a point of its entry into the world.
© Nachman Davies
Tzfat June 2021
NOTES
[i]
To a certain extent and despite the disagreement amongst poskim, this liturgical format
was also reflected in the
“porch minyanim” in use during
the global coronavirus
outbreak that began in 2020.
[ii] I
Melachim 19:12
[iii] In Pesachim 54a we read that one of the ‘ten things
that were created on Erev Shabbat at
twilight’ was ‘the cave in which
Moshe and Eliyahu stood.’
[iv] Shemot
40:33-35
[v] I Melachim 8:10
[vi]
being in fearful awe of the Divine
[vii]
King Solomon (builder of the Second
Temple)
[viii] I
Melachim 8:12
[ix]
(in the verbal proclamation of the Divine Attributes)
[x] Vayikra
20:14
[xi] I
Melachim 19:9, and again in I Melachim 19:13
[xii]
I Melachim 19:4
[xiii]
A similarly consecutive forced retirement/appointment of a successor after a
failed test seems to have occurred to
Moshe Rabbeinu in Devarim 3:27
[xiv] Malachi
3:23
[xv] Malachi
3:24
[xvi]
In Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:6. See
also Zohar 1:93a
(This essay is from Chapter Three of "The Cave of the Heart"
and based on an earlier essay from 2007)
Thanks are cordially made to SEFARIA for enabling citation links on this website.
