5786/2026
Many of us have a favorite Dvar Torah that we delight in delivering at our Pesach seder each year. Mine is a Dvar Torah I heard from one of my own high school Rebbeim, Rav Moshe Chaim Sosevsky, many years ago.
Rav Sosevsky noted that the mysterious figure of Eliyahu HaNavi “appears” in two very different rituals in our tradition that seem entirely unrelated to each other. The first is at a baby’s Brit Milah, as the infant is placed on the Kisei Shel Eliyahu, a ceremonial chair upon which the Sandek sits as the circumcision is performed. The second ritual is, of course, at the climax of the Pesach seder as we pour the “fifth” cup, the Kos Shel Eliyahu.
Before we can distill the common denominator between these two rituals, we might observe that Eliyahu is also identified as critical in yet another Halachic context. When the Gemara is unsure as to how to resolve a financial dispute over the proper ownership of an object or sum of money, the conclusion is “Yehei Munach Ad SheYavo Eliyahu”– the object is held in abeyance until Eliyahu will come and resolve the proprietary dispute in the future, presumably in the messianic era.
Why Eliyahu is selected as the ultimate arbiter of Jewish law may be rooted in Eliyahu’s status as a timeless figure who plays a role in multiple generations, identified with biblical figures such as Pinchas and as an interlocutor with many of our talmudic sages. P’sak Halacha is properly determined by a learned authority who is steeped in the historical sweep of the Mesorah, our Jewish legal and philosophical tradition, throughout the generations but at the same time intuits the appropriate application of that Mesorah to the needs of the current generation. The portrait of the mythical Eliyahu as living in each era across the centuries renders him a most capable posek in the future.
With this symbolic depiction of Eliyahu in mind, we can now link Eliyahu to the two rituals in which his Kisei and Kos appear. At both the brit mila and the seder night, the transmission of the Mesorah is paramount. At the infant’s circumcision the father physically initiates the newborn into its Jewish personhood in the presence of Eliyahu, the exemplar of the Mesorah. At the Pesach seder, whose theme and mandate is “V’Higadata L’Bincha” “and you shall instruct your son,” the parent spiritually initiates the child into Jewish nationhood by teaching him Torah, both the Written and Oral Law, against the backdrop of the dramatic events of Jewish history.
It is no wonder that Brit Milah and the Seder night are inextricably linked in two additional ways. The first is that the highlight of the seder B’Zman HaMikdash was the festive consumption of the korban Pesach, an obligation upon every Jew but only permitted to circumcised males. Brit Milah is thus an indispensable prerequisite to the fulfillment of the essential commandment of the night of Pesach. The second exclusive shared feature is that brit mila and the Korban Pesach are the only positive commandments whose omission bears the severe penalty of Karet, a heavenly sentence of excision from the Jewish people.
Eliyahu HaNavi presides over these two Mitzvot because they are inherent to our identity as members of the Jewish people. Our integrity as a nation is completely reliant on the transmission of our Mesorah from parent to child. That unbroken chain of tradition is embedded first in the visceral Mitzvah of Brit Milah shortly after the birth of a child. It is then reinforced spiritually every year at the seder night as the parent enthralls the child with the interactive marvel of Torah learning and captivates the next generation by retelling and re-experiencing the miracle of Jewish survival and salvation.
The stakes are high for both parents and teachers to undertake this holy work not just once a year but each and every day. When we interact even casually with our children and students, we are teaching their minds and touching their souls. With every word, gesture or action, we are perpetually transmitting to them what it means to be fully engaged members of Am Yisrael and shaping their proper relationship to the world as citizens in the 21st century.