Danger, danger!

The rather peculiar story of Elijah struck me today, as he turns up to tell Rabbi Yossi that he shouldn't have gone in to a ruin to pray but should have stayed on the road and prayed an abbreviated amidah. We are then told that there are 3 reasons not to go into a ruin - falling masonry, suspicion that one might be meeting a woman there, and demons.

It seemed strange to me that Elijah comes to teach something so apparently mundane - there are no enormous revelations here - so I started thinking about a possible deeper understanding. I came to the idea that the three dangers listed might cover more than just entering a ruin - that these three dangers, representing the physical, spiritual and social dangers, run the gamut of what threatens us as people living in society.

With the Talmud's short discussion afterwards, we know that no single one of these categories cover all of human experience, but all three are separate and necessary to explain the things that threaten who we are. Physical, spiritual and social dangers may come at any time, but we might think that we are particularly vulnerable at night, when the world is dark, and we don't know what's out there.

So perhaps we've learnt something more than why we should be careful about entering a ruin - for the world is dark and full of terrors.