Shir HaShirim - The Knock At The Door
I. What Am I, A Prophet?
I saw a cartoon the other day by my favorite Israeli cartoonist, Guy Morad. It shows a bunch of people sitting in a bomb shelter, one of whom is Eliyahu HaNavi. One guy asks Eliyahu, “Ma Yihiye Eliyahu - What’s gonna be?” And Eliyahu turns to him and says, “Ani Nireh Lecha Navi - Do I look to you like a prophet?”
It’s a good example of how Israelis use humor to manage stress. And it gives us a window into the feeling many Israelis have these days. When will this all be over? Can someone please just give us a timeline?
Someone in Israel shared a post on social media that said, “the siren is not the hard part. When the siren goes off, you move. You grab the kids, you count heads, you get to the safe room, you wait. There's a protocol. Your body knows what to do. Ten seconds, ninety seconds, all clear. Done. The hard part is the silence between sirens.” And it goes on to describe how difficult it is to go through daily life when the next moment a siren could send you running for shelter.
I imagine that our ancestors, huddled inside, their doors smeared with the blood of the Korban Pesach, while they could hear the screams of their neighbors during Makat Bechorot, must also have felt terrified, exhausted, and insecure.
But maybe that’s what Pesach is really all about. Not only remembering that God saved us in the past, but reminding each other that He will always watch out for our Nation.
II. Opening The Door For Eliyahu
As a kid, one of my favorite parts of the Seder was opening the door for Eliyahu HaNavi. I don’t know why, exactly. It’s not like there was ever anyone there when we opened the door. And though it was fun to do something unusual like opening the door late at night, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t reciting Shfoch Chamatcha (“Pour out your wrath upon the Nations”) that did it for me either.
I think it must have just been this idea that Eliyahu HaNavi, ancient and invisible, was visiting our Seder. I do remember checking his cup the next morning to see if he had drunk any of the wine. I could never tell if he had :-)
Why do we open the door for Eliyahu?
The Rama (Orach Chaim 480:1) writes that we open the door “כדי לזכור שהוא ליל שמורים” to remember that it is Leil Shimurim (Shemot 12:42), the night that Hashem watches over us and protects us. And therefore, explains the Mishna Berura, “אין מתייראין משום דבר” - we are fearless. On Seder night we open the door knowing that God is watching over us.
That explains why we open the door. But why specifically for Eliyahu?
Because Eliyahu is the one who heralds redemption. The Rama continues:
ובזכות אמונה זו יבא משיח וישפוך חמתו על העכו"ם
Expressing our faith in Hashem’s protection is a catalyst for Mashiach’s arrival.
Similarly, the Mishna Berura explains the custom of having a 5th cup on the table, a Kos Shel Eliyahu, as an expression of our faith that just as God redeemed us in the past, so too will He do so again in the future:
ונוהגין באלו מדינות למזוג כוס אחד יותר מהמסובין וקורין אותו כוס של אליהו הנביא (לרמז שאנו מאמינים שכשם שגאלנו הש"י ממצרים הוא יגאלנו עוד וישלח לנו את אליהו לבשרנו)
I think that’s a beautiful idea. But the more I think about it the more I suspect that there might be an even deeper symbolism of opening the door, one that references a scene we read about this morning in Shir HaShirim.
III. Missed Opportunities
Megillat Shir HaShirim is an allegory depicting the love between Hashem and Am Yisrael - “אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי - I am my beloved and my beloved is mine (Shir HaShirim 6:3).”
But there is a heartbreaking scene in which Shlomo HaMelech describes the woman woken from her sleep when she hears a knock on the door (Shir HaShirim 5:2):
אֲנִי יְשֵׁנָה וְלִבִּי עֵר
קוֹל דּוֹדִי דוֹפֵק פִּתְחִי לִי אֲחֹתִי
I was asleep but my heart was awake.
The voice of my beloved is knocking! Open for me, my darling.
And yet, despite wanting so badly to be with her beloved, the woman makes excuses why she should not rise up and open the door (Shir HaShirim 5:3):
פָּשַׁטְתִּי אֶת כֻּתׇּנְתִּי אֵיכָכָה אֶלְבָּשֶׁנָּה
רָחַצְתִּי אֶת רַגְלַי אֵיכָכָה אֲטַנְּפֵם
I had taken off my robe. Was I to put it on again?
I bathed my feet. Was I to soil them again?
She hesitates for just that split second, and then realizes her mistake. In the very next pasuk she runs to the door to open it for him, but he is gone (Shir HaShirim 5:4-6):
דּוֹדִי שָׁלַח יָדוֹ מִן הַחֹר וּמֵעַי הָמוּ עָלָיו:
My beloved took his hand off the latch and my heart was stirred for him.
קַמְתִּי אֲנִי לִפְתֹּחַ לְדוֹדִי וְיָדַי נָטְפוּ מוֹר וְאֶצְבְּעֹתַי מוֹר עֹבֵר עַל כַּפּוֹת הַמַּנְעוּל׃
I rose to let in my beloved. My hands dripped myrrh.
My fingers flowing myrrh upon the handles of the bolt
פָּתַחְתִּי אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי חָמַק עָבָר
I opened the door for my beloved but my beloved had turned and gone.
נַפְשִׁי יָצְאָה בְדַבְּרוֹ
I was faint because of what he said.
בִּקַּשְׁתִּיהוּ וְלֹא מְצָאתִיהוּ קְרָאתִיו וְלֹא עָנָנִי׃
I sought, but found him not. I called, but he did not answer.
We’ve all had moments in our lives when we hesitated, missed an opportunity, and later came to regret it. Maybe we let the call go to voicemail. Or maybe we didn’t step up right away when an opportunity presented itself. Maybe we were lazy. Maybe we were comfortable. Maybe we were scared.
Daniel Pink, in his book The Power of Regret, notes that later in life it’s the things that we didn’t do that we tend to regret; not the things we did.
IV. The Shoah
On Yom Haatzmaut 1956, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveichik (the Rav) gave a famous address, which eventually was published as a book under the name, taken from these very pesukim in Shir HaShirim, Kol Dodi Dofek.
The Rav expounds upon this theme of missed opportunities, pointing to examples from Tanach such as Shaul, who 1st made excuses before taking responsibility, unlike David HaMelech who immediately responded “Chatati L’Hashem - I have sinned against God.”
And then the Rav addresses the tragedy of the Shoah, the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered. Listen to his haunting words:
“Let us be honest. During the terrible Holocaust, when European Jewry was systematically destroyed in gas chambers and crematoria, the American Jewish community did not rise to the occasion, and did not acquit itself as a community with the collective consciousness of shared fate, shared suffering and shared action with which it should have been expected to act. We did not properly sense the suffering of the nation, and we did precious little to save our unfortunate brethren. It is hard to know what we could have accomplished had we been more active. I personally think we could have saved many. No doubt, however, if we had properly felt the pain of our brothers; had we raised our voices and shaken worlds, that Roosevelt issue a sharp warning of protest accompanied by action, we would have been able to significantly slow the process of mass destruction. We witnessed the most horrible tragedy in our history, and we were silent. I shall not now dwell on the particulars. It is an extremely painful chapter. We all sinned by our silence in the face of the murder of millions.”
During the Shoah, says the Rav, American Jewry was too passive and didn’t do enough to save lives. Medinat Yisrael, in his view, was the response of a People decimated in the Holocaust, to take back control of their destiny. The only question was whether this time we would answer the knock at the door. The Rav writes:
“Eight years ago, in the midst of a night of the terrors of Majdanek, Treblinka, and Buchenwald; in a night of gas chambers and crematoria; in a night of total divine self concealment; in a night ruled by the devil of doubt and destruction who sought to sweep the Lover from her own tent into the Catholic Church; in a night of continuous searching for the Beloved - on that very night the Beloved appeared. The Almighty, who was hiding in His splendid sanctum, suddenly appeared and began to beckon at the tent of the Lover, who tossed and turned on her bed beset by convulsions and the agonies of hell. Because of the beating and knocking at the door of the mournful Lover, the State of Israel was born.”
V. 3 Oaths and 6 Knocks
At its core, the Rav’s Kol Dodi Dofek was a defense of Zionism against those who opposed it for either practical or theological reasons. Some opposed modern Zionism because it was led by secular Jews who did not share the same vision for what a Jewish home should look like. Others opposed it based on the Three Oaths mentioned in Shir HaShirim (Ketuvot 111a), which they interpreted to mean that Jews should wait passively for Mashiach to bring the redemption, rather than push it forward prematurely.
Rather than view Zionism as a breach of God’s will, the Rav identified six “knocks at the door” that he felt demonstrated God’s calling to support a Jewish State.
1) Political
“First, the knock of opportunity was heard in the political arena… No one can deny that from the standpoint of international relations, the establishment of the State of Israel, in a political sense, was an almost supernatural occurrence. Russian and the Western countries together supported the idea of the establishment of the State of Israel, perhaps the only recommendation on which they united. I tend to believe that the United Nations was created only for this purpose…”
2) Military
“Second, the knock of the Beloved could be heard on the battlefield. The small Israeli Defense Forces defeated the powerful armies of the Arab countries. The miracle of the “few defeating the many” happened before our eyes. Even more astonishing, God hardened the hearts of Yishmael and directed it to go to war against the State of Israel…”
3) Theological
“Third, the Beloved began to knock as well on the door of the theological tent and this might be the strongest knock of all. I have emphasized several times when speaking of the land of Israel that all the claims of Christian theologians that God deprived the Jewish people of its rights in the land of Israel, and that all the biblical promises regarding Zion and Jerusalem refer, in an allegorical sense, to Christianity and the Christian Church, have been publicly refuted by the establishment of the State of Israel as false assertions that have no substance or root.”
4) Youth
“Fourth, the Beloved knocked on the hearts of the bewildered and assimilated youth. The divine concealment in the early 1940’s confused the minds of Jews in general and the young in particular. Assimilation grew and the push to escape Judaism and the Jewish people reached its peak. Fear, despair and ignorance caused many to abandon the Jewish people… Suddenly, the Beloved knocked on the hearts of these perplexed youth, and His knock… slowed, at least, the process of escape.”
5) Self-Defense
“The fifth knock of the Beloved is perhaps the most important of all. For the first time in the history of our exile, divine providence has surprised our enemies with the shocking discovery that Jewish blood is not hefker. If the Jew-haters term this “an eye for an eye,” we will agree with them. If we want to preserve our national-historical existence, sometimes we have to interpret “an eye for an eye” literally.”
6) Refuge
“The sixth knock that should not be ignored was heard when the gates of the land were opened. A Jew who flees from an enemy country now knows that he can find a secure refuge in the land of his ancestors. This is a new phenomenon in our times. Until now, when Jewish populations were uprooted from their places, they wandered in the wilderness of the nations without finding a refuge in another land… Now, the situation has changed.”
The question posed by the Rav, indeed posed by Shlomo HaMelech in Shir HaShirim, is when our Beloved comes knocking at our door will we be ready to open it?
In 2023, to mark Israel 75th anniversary, Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun of Teaneck, NJ, wrote an article highlighting 6 knocks of his own that had inspired him since the publishing of Kol Dodi Dofek:
1) Capture of Adolf Eichmann
2) Six Day War
3) Raid on Entebbe
4) Kibbutz Galuyot, the ingathering of the exiles
5) Religious Revival in the State of Israel
6) Start-Up Nation
And this got me thinking. In the last 2.5 years Am Yisrael has been through so much, and has experienced so many incredible things. We could easily come up with our own list of 6 knocks just since 10/7.
1) Return of all our hostages
2) Defeat of the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria
3) Incredible military and intelligence operations
4) Resilience of the Israeli Economy
5) Growing Aliyah and Army Enlistment even during war
6) Achdut and Jewish Pride
When you sit around the table with your family, see what other knocks you can think of, either for Klal Yisrael as a whole, or for your own family.
VI. The Eye of the Needle
So let’s return to our original question. Why do we open the door for Eliyahu HaNavi?
Yes, opening the door is a sign of our faith in God’s protection. But it’s more than that. It’s a message to ourselves and to our children that we have to always be ready to answer the knock at the door. To see the miracles around us and open our hearts.
There’s a story about the students of the Kotzker Rebbe who were disappointed that after opening the door for Eliyahu, he never appeared. They told their Rebbe, "We did everything right, but Eliyahu didn't come." The Rebbe replied, "Fools! Do you think Eliyahu enters through the door? He enters through the heart!"
Let’s return to the pasuk of Kol Dodi Dofek (Shir HaShirim 5:3). Immediately preceding those words, the pasuk says “אֲנִי יְשֵׁנָה וְלִבִּי עֵר - I was asleep but my heart was awake.” What does that mean?
It means that even while our body sleeps, our heart keeps working. The Midrash (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 5:2) explains:
“The congregation of Israel said before the Holy One blessed be He: Master of the universe:
• “I am asleep” regarding the mitzvot, “but my heart is awake” for acts of kindness.
• “I am asleep” regarding acts of charity, “but my heart is awake” to perform them.
• “I am asleep” regarding the offerings, “but my heart is awake” for reciting Shema and Amida.
• “I am asleep” regarding the Temple, “but my heart is awake,” in synagogues and study halls.
• “I am asleep” regarding the end [of days], “but my heart is awake” for the redemption.”
In other words, even when we don’t seem ready, deep down we are yearning for the knock and are primed to respond.
And then the Midrash continues with a famous teaching:
אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, בָּנַי, פִּתְחוּ לִי פֶּתַח אֶחָד שֶׁל תְּשׁוּבָה כְּחֻדָּהּ שֶׁל מַחַט, וַאֲנִי פּוֹתֵחַ לָכֶם פְּתָחִים שֶׁיִּהְיוּ עֲגָלוֹת וּקְרוֹנִיּוֹת נִכְנָסוֹת בּוֹ
“The Holy One blessed be He said to Israel: My children, open for Me one opening of repentance like the eye of the needle, and I will open for you openings that wagons and carriages enter through it.”
All we are asked to do is crack the door open a tiny bit and Hashem will do the rest.
VII. What Is Your Knock?
I don’t know if you had anyone standing at the door when you opened it for Eliyahu this year. But this morning’s Megilla reading asks each of us to reflect on whether our hearts are open to the knocks all around us. Do we see נסיך שבכל יום עמנו, the miracles that happen for our Nation and for us as individuals on a daily basis? Do we understand that we are not just passive spectators, but that we play a role in bringing redemption?
“Kol Dodi Dofek - The voice of my beloved is knocking!”
Are we ready to answer the door?
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