Who but Elijah would presume to address Ein Sof directly? His intimacy with God enables him to know the unknowable and trace the indescribable.

In the words of the kabbalist Moses Cordovero, “The closest that divinity can possibly come to humanity is the mystery of Elijah.”

Elijah has now become a champion of ethical demands, advocating for justice and human rights. He exhibits the moral conscience that develops further in the classical prophets of the next century: Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah. As we will see, this sterling quality characterizes the postbiblical Elijah.

The notion that Elijah became an angel accords with rabbinic tradition, but the Zohar alludes to a more radical view: Elijah was originally an angel, even before his biblical phase.

This is the meaning of: Look, I am sending to you [Elijah the prophet]—for the word sending is in the present tense, because it is constantly so, in each person and at all times.

unlike his predecessor, Jesus celebrated the kingdom as already present—in his teaching and actions. His emphasis was less on doom and more on the good news that God was about to restore His scattered people.

he and his disciple-successor, Elisha, are the only prophets in the Hebrew Bible especially noted for performing miracles.

Elijah fills a need for hope—and for justice.

Elijah’s power is limited, because traditionally a prophet cannot invoke his own authority to establish the halakhah: