Greetings!
What is your Elijah moment?
Last week Rabbi Daniel Cohen, formerly of the Young Israel of West Hartford and now the leader of Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford, moderated a Federation program with Mark Shenkman, an extraordinary philanthropist who grew up in Greater Hartford. During their conversation, Rabbi Cohen told the following story:
A man came to a rabbi and asked to meet Elijah. The rabbi told him to go into the forest before Shabbat and bring food to the home of a particular woman and her children. There he would meet Elijah. He came to the rabbi after Shabbat, disappointed: he had followed every instruction but hadn’t met Elijah. The rabbi told him to return again the next Friday afternoon with food for Shabbat and that he would meet Elijah. The man did so, and as he approached the poor woman’s home, he heard one of her children cry out, “Mama, we have no food for Shabbat. What are we going to eat?” The woman replied, “Don’t worry; just as Elijah visited us last week, he will surely return today.”
In November of 2014, Rabbi Cohen started the Elijah campaign with his friend, Pastor Greg Doll of Noroton Presbyterian Church, to counteract increasing incivility and acts of violence by flooding the world with acts of kindness. They gave gifts to strangers with only one request: that the strangers consider paying it forward. The campaign and its impact are richly documented in the short video below.