Guest Speaker: Rabbi Elliot Klayman
Transcript(from the video captions)
Well, that's one of the questions. Uh How long are we here for? When are we coming? When are we going? We're We don't even know for sure, but uh 3 and 1/2 months for this time. We are in transition from San Diego. And uh depending upon what our accountant says. No, actually, it's nothing to do with that. Always wondered, what if you spend like 6 months and 1 day here and then your spouse spends 6 months and 1 day there. I don't know. Do you get sort of a a double I don't know. Doesn't matter. But, the last time I remember speaking here, uh I don't know what month or when, but I remember the topic and it was uh uh the first time I spoke that message and it was making believers great again. And uh how many remember that? I feel a few do. Hey, it's a memorable title, right? And uh >> [clears throat] >> a friend of mine, Rabbi Mel Friedland, uh who's gone on to be with the Lord, uh he said that a message a sermon is not like a postage stamp. You can reuse it. Uh and so and so I took that and I did speak that at uh Beth Messiah, Columbus, Ohio, with modification. You're always going to modify it.
And uh uh for today's message, uh it's a new one and I've been thinking about it for a while and the great thing about it is that I can give it over and over again 51 weeks out of the year. 51 weeks out of the year. Four post-Passover questions propounded to Elijah. I can give that, you know. So, we'll we'll see what happens. In any event, on the Passover Seder, anticipation mounts and expectations rise as a child is appointed to go to the door to see whether the prophet Elijah has appeared. Elijah is a biblical forerunner of the Messiah who's the hope and redemp- redemption of uh and salvation for the Jewish people and for uh the nations as well. According to Malachi 3:23 to 3:24 or depending on your version, it could be chapter 4:5-6. Elijah who never tasted of death but rather ascended in a fiery chariot into the heavenlies reappears. We see him like 30 times mentioned in the Brit Chadasha. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers lest I come
and smite the earth with a curse, a curse. It's interesting to note that the last word then in many biblical versions uh is herem, herem, which is also used for excommunication or banning uh someone. Uh it connotes utter destruction, desolation. The last word in the Bible of the Hebrew Bible is curse. So, these versions versions uh end with a curse. And then the Brit Chadasha opens in Matthew with a genealogy of Yeshua Hamashiach ben David ben Abraham, the one who came to remove the curse. The one who came to take away the curse. Um there are two particularly noteworthy uh portions here that I want to highlight that he appears on the Mount of Transfiguration along with Moses and Yeshua. Moses represents the law and Elijah the prophets. And there they engage in a conversation uh with with Yeshua uh concerning his departure, Yeshua's departure. And then secondly Yeshua points to Yohanan Hamatbe'el, John the Immerser, as the one who was to come in the spirit of Elijah had the people accepted him. Had the people accepted him. But apparently that has been postponed until Elijah comes and we probably see him there in
Revelation 1 or 11:6 where he's one of two witnesses who have the power like Elijah to stop the rain. He's a precursor to the second coming of Yeshua. And I have four questions for him. And I hope that those questions are yours as well. And first of all what do you do when God does not show up? What do you do when God doesn't show up? Now don't tell me that he never that that he never uh that he always shows up because that's one of the things that we shouldn't do. Don't manipulate God and make him show up to prove that he did. That's number one. In other words, let's be truthful. God does not always answer your prayers in the affirmative. And he does not always answer them now. Sometimes he just does not show up when you feel you need him most. And that's one of the worst. Since you can't blame God, don't blame someone else for him not showing up in your life. And don't pretend to be happy when you're not, and don't defend God. Don't be an apologetic for God. He does not need your apologetics. He needs no defense. In Kings 1 uh 19. Kings 1, and I love this story. Elijah took on the prophets of Ba- Baal
and totally humiliated and decimated them in the battle of who is God. And he chased the 400 down to the Kidron Valley below and slew them. From the vantage of the mount of the challenge, and I've been there many times. Uh you can see, and Elijah could see the last battle there on the plains of Jehoshaphat, sometimes referred to as Megiddo or Jezreel Valley, or where the battle of Armageddon, the last battle will take place. And I'm telling you, when you look at it, and you look at it, you think, this would be a an unb- How are 300, I don't know, million uh soldiers going to come from the east? And how are they coming from the north? And how that place is so huge and such a plain, and what a great place uh for a battle. What did Elijah then do? Well, his faith was curbed, and he fled into the wilderness. He was so afraid of Queen Jezebel, who threatened to kill him. Don't flee like Elijah. In other words, uh no human is perfect. And there's no safety outside the Lord. And there's nowhere that you can flee to. You're stuck with yourself. And consequently, you have to face yourself. Nevertheless, Elijah is the example of
what to do when he does not show up. When God does not show up, wait on the Lord. Instead of first dealing with Elijah's spiritual needs, God took care of his physical needs and sent an angel with food and water and rest. Then he did it again, actually. Sometimes we're so exhausted with life's demands and challenges that we first need to attend to ourselves, to ourselves. That's so important. Uh to our own physical needs, uh like food, like hydration. Uh Joyce tells me that's my wife, by the way. Uh I tend to get dehydrated. Uh I I have to admit that uh uh I don't always drink water, you know? Uh I drink tea and I drink carbonated water and uh uh juice. But water's the best, really. And that's what they say we're made of, like 90%. I don't know. I never put anyone in a juicer to find out. But >> [laughter] >> And we need sleep. You know, sometimes a good pastrami on rye may be the first antidote to weariness. Uh it's hard to discern God when you're so fatigued and physically drained. In those circumstances, it is not uncommon to feel and depressed uh feel depressed and feel sad because of
low blood sugar, dehydration, where are you just may believe things are happening that are not. Take care of your body. Stop eating as much junk food as you do. I'm serious about that. No, I am serious. Really. Uh you can just look at the statistics and and what's happening amongst the young as well and so much diabetes, you know, for the young and uh now, don't be fanatical. You can't do it all at once. It's a process. Processed food though did not exist in God's plate. Uh or in the garden. Eat fresh foods and as my nephrologist says, it's okay to eat ice cream and cake once in a while, but don't make a habit of it every night. Um so what do you do when God doesn't show up? Well, silence is not absence. Sometimes we can't hear God because we're too noisy. We won't stop talking. Sometimes we won't even stop praying to to wait on God's answer for our prayer. We're thinking, like Elijah, you may expect him to show up in a great mighty wind. But Adonai was not in that wind. You may expect him to show up in the cataclysm of the moment, a revela- a revolution-ary earthquake, or a revelation-ary, I'll say if that's
a word, in your being. Adonai was not in that earthquake or in the charismatic fire of the Lord. He did not manifest himself in those ways to Elijah. Oy vey, what to do when God does not show up. Face it. And then he just might show up as he did in that still small voice that only you can hear. That only you can hear. Nobody else can hear because of the subjectivism to which it is directed. He knows who you are, and the sound of silence is often where God does show up and sometimes does not. As in Simon and Garfunkel's song on the sound the sound of silence. Where he shows up on the words of the street prophets. Hello darkness, my old friend. My wife threatened me. I cannot do not sing that song amidst these fantastic vocalists here and musicians. I've come to talk to you again. Okay, that's it. And the people and the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made. And the signs flashed out its warning in the words that it was forming. And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls and whispered in the sound of silence. Re-examine your assumptions.
Elijah thought that he was the only one who was faithful and could thus save Israel. Uh no. It's not that only you can do it. Uh when we feel alone, it doesn't really mean that we are alone. Elijah thought he was, but there were 7,000 believers like him who had not bowed their knee to bow to Bale. And there are many like Aaron and Hur at that early battle when Moses was fatigued and they held his hands up. And when when he put his hands down, he was losing the battle. We need each other. That's why we are congregating here, and that's why it says fail not to congregate together amongst the brethren, amongst the believers, right? So, uh we have people who will come to aid you and facilitate what is needed if you only make your needs known to the body. Don't deprive the body of their help in your time of need. In one of my most uh time my my my most uh crises, times of needs, I made my need known of a kidney to the body of believers all over. And God showed up, and he answered. And the person was right in my backyard, not really in the congregation where I was attending. Return to the place where
you were victorious. Okay? God told Elijah to go back and anoint his successor, Elisha. We need to go back into the service of God in which we were called. Instead of searching for God for the answer, for healing, for restoration, for renewal, go back into your service calling. Pour yourself into the talent that God has endowed you with. Go back to your first love of God and the excitement of serving him. In Columbus, Ohio, a number of years ago, uh there was a rabbi who had stage four cancer and he was dying and he was passing away. And you know, he went to he went to his actually it was the the head rabbi in Columbus, Ohio. Uh and uh he told him, you know, and he went there. I guess he was expecting a touch and healing. And what the head rabbi told him was go to Israel and serve. And that rabbi with stage four cancer went to Israel and he served until he died of cancer. And so, that's what we really need to do. The second question to Elijah is, what do you do with the anger and bitterness and despair in your heart? Oh, I know that I'm the only one who's ever had that. Uh first of all, human nature requires it.
Elijah experienced a kind of Bar Mitzvah blues after his success on Mount Carmel. Right? He took down those prophets. I love that story and uh reading it again and again. The Bible tells us in James 5:17 that as Elijah was a man with a human nature, so he had the same ups and down emotional feelings. He actually reached a place of suicidal ideations. When he fled to the desert and prayed under a broom tree to die, saying, "My speak enough. My speak. Do you ever say that to yourself? To other This is enough. I've had enough. That my speak. That's when God shows up. The root of bitterness may arise from disappointment and unmet expectations. He was hoping for national revival after he trounced the prophets of Baal of Bale. Jezebel Queen Jezebel was out to kill Elijah because of what he did to her prophets. He was disillusioned and undoubtedly fearful and faithless at the time. He was lonely and wanted solitude solitude in a cave cowering in hiding. Maybe you felt like that at times yelling internally or even externally leave me alone. Then you hear the door shut or slam. Leave me alone. Sometimes we need to be
left alone with just ourself. And then with ourself and God. And then wait on him for the revelation of what must we do now? Um God fed Elijah what he needed. Fellowship. Fell He He fed him fellowship. Uh Elisha his successor who he went back to and ordained. With someone we trust, we can be transparent with and communication can be cathartic. It was for Elijah and it can be for you, too. Loneliness exacerbates the feelings of bitterness anger and desperation as it soaks in that pot and brews hara not good evil instead of tov instead of good. If left unchecked it will descend into darkness my old friend. Focus on the stillness of God's voice rather than the volatile eruptions of the earthquake that threaten your life. They are going to keep coming. They're there for a purpose. My daughter who's a certified family counselor would say when you encounter these emotions take a journal take to your journal and state your feelings, write them down, and what would you like to do about them? And she insists that in many cases those feelings will subside or even dissolve. It's not going to hurt you.
Try it. Elijah at one point must have been begrudgingly thinking, I've served you God and now this is what I get? He would not think that again after he experienced the comfort of a God who knows your needs and knew his needs as well. Third question, what's this reconciliation of children to the fathers and fathers to the children all about? I mean, if anybody should know, it should be Elijah because uh that's what he's to come and do in the last days. If you can reconcile from near, you can reconcile from afar. I'm coming to prepare the way Elijah could have said for Messiah. I'm sent by God as a final call to repentance and preparation and to make ready for the Lord's calling, cleansing as in purging the house of leaven before that great and dreadful day. Uh from a theological perspective, it serves to prepare the way for Messiah's second advent. He will judge all nations on the basis of how they treated Israel. Think about that. We We We tend to We tend to forget that. You know, there's sheep nations and there's goat nations and and then there's the brethren. There's the brethren, the uh
Messianic believers, we'll say. And uh it's a call not for mechanical obedience, uh but rather in response to the heart exuding an internal love and devotion toward God. It has to do It has to do with an expansion of our neighborhood. Think about that. It has everything to do for who is your neighbor? We find the question in the New Testament and in the parable of the good Samaritan. Reconciliation starts with the members of your nuclear family and then moves outward toward the need to reconcile with others who offended you or those who were offended by you. Healing starts in the house of God, in your home as a purging ground. Then only after reconciling with those who are nearest to you, are you sufficiently able to move outward to those in your surrounding environs, your nuclear family Your Your non-nuclear family, your friends, your acquaintances, and most of all, reconciling with you. You need to reconcile with yourself.
Reconciliation begins in the heart and responds to God's call, "Be ye reconciled." It begins with introspection and reconciling first with you and God. It is necessary for the collective to engage in this reconciliation to avert the curse. Jews are a people of God and as Messianic believers and especially those connected to a spiritual uh congregation that is embedded within a Jewish cultural lifestyle, we are all called to this ministry of reconciliation. We've seen the breaking down of the middle wall of partition. Here at Shaarey Shalom and other places as well where Jew and non-Jew in Messiah are one. Are together having secured equal access to God through Yeshua's death on the crucifixion stake. And worshipping together in a culturally sensitive Jewish way. Can I get an amen? We're not in it for ourself but for the welfare of people, the congregation, and Israel to to God. Let's leave our gift at the altar and begin the process of exemplifying Yeshua who was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. For Father, they don't know the full extent of what they do.
He's committed the message of the reconciliation to us. >> [snorts] >> It's the Passover practice of purging the leaven, removing it from our lives during Passover and making a new lump that makes it kadosh. Kadosh, holy. Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened, for even Messiah our Passover is sacrificed for us. Reconciliation is a two-way street, but it's necessary for each on opposite sides of the street to first engage alone in the hard work in preparation for the rejoinder that togetherness is necessary to clear the roadway brush ahead. Like Robert Frost said, the right road is not always the easiest, but sometimes it is the road less traveled with all the schmutz impeding one's travel. And finally, fourthly, the question to Elijah is where is God? And the question to us often times is but where is God? 1 Kings 17 speaks of a raven feeding Elijah. That's where God is. That's silly. That's like totally crazy. A widow who gives some morsels of food to him and receives an abundance of oil and flour in return. And Elijah raising the widow's son
from the dead. We see the nearness and the presence of God operating in Elijah's life. God does not always show up in a way we expect him to. He is there in your joy and in your sadness. He is there through the back door when you're looking at for him in the front door. >> [snorts] >> Look for the messenger. There at the Brook Cherith, Elijah, a lonely prophet being hunted by Ahab and Jezebel, his wife, uh those northern uh bad uh paganized uh people, hungry, thirsty, and tired, found comfort in a raven sent by God to fulfill his needs. So, he doesn't always do it directly. He sends a messenger, and sometimes the messenger is human. But sometimes it could be environmental, other than human human. As surprising as a raven. Never give up. Where is God? Now, when your brook dries up and the raven ceases to serve you, don't give up. Help is on the horizon. There is a Gentile widow in Zarephath in Zarephath, prepared by God to sustained you sustain you like she did Elijah, the man of God. Yes, she's present even over there in pagan lands, in the most remote areas of your life. She will meet your greatest
needs even as she met Elijah's, but more importantly, he met the widow's need first. After she poured out a little of her oil and flour and received a surplus with godly assurance that it would last her through the famine that was occurring uh because of the lack of rain because of Elijah. God shows up in the strangest places, often where you expect him least, and he comes through miraculously because he knows your needs. The jar and the jug do not run dry and neither will your joy, hope, compassion, and endurance, or wisdom, and honesty, or transparency in business affairs. Cuz according to the rabbis, the first thing God will ask you when you come to the gates to Sha'arei Shalom, is were you honest in business? >> [snorts]
>> So, we need to be focused on him. Where's this projecting blame? The widow's son dies, and at first she blames it on Elijah. Where's God? Elijah's story here is the apex of the question and the answer. God is there in the image of Yeshua, who raised others from the dead and rose from the grave. God is there and can be seen through the needy, the poor, the marginalized. When we go and do the work of loving our neighbor and keep on expanding our neighborhood through loving our neighbors, then we will experience our own resurrection resurrection from ashes to beauty, >> [snorts] >> uh and oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And we will then evoke the same response of the widow who bellowed, quote, "Now I know that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth." Amen. In these moments, we will connect the dots and experience the aha that there's something too hard for the Lord. There's nothing too hard for the Lord to do even through you. Go and do. Conclusion. You can write your own conclusion. That will be good, and you should Think about it. I will write mine here.
The grandson of the famous Rebbe was playing a hide-and-seek, but he came running to his grandfather in tears. "What is wrong?" the Rebbe asked. The boy sobbed, "We were playing hide-and-seek. I hid so well, but I expected my friend to find me eventually." The Rebbe began to weep and said, "That is exactly what God says. I'm hiding, but no one is looking for me hard enough to find me. God is found in the act of searching, but we don't notice him because we're looking in the wrong places. We expect him in the bright lights and the earthquakes in the cataclysmic crises and horrors and the sensational scenes, when in fact he is there in the presence of the mundane, on the street corners and in neighborhoods where people inside their houses behind their painted doors are wondering how to cope with everyday family problems and make life a little more tolerable for their family. He's there where where people are leaning on lamp posts and sitting on stoops, hanging out and chattering about the familiar cultural sounds that move them, where truck drivers are advancing through long sleepless nights
in their hauling, struggling to make ends meet. He's there among the ordinary when your children greet you affectionately when you come home from work, and when you embrace your parents and grandparents who are trying not to burden you about their health issues. He's there when you observe the homeless searching through the refuse for something useful for them. He's there when you seek him and do the hard work of searching for him in the most unlovely places. He's there where it is written on the subway walls among those street prophets who are striving to find meaning in their existence. Go and search and do. Shabbat Shalom. >> Shabbat Shalom.