Leave the door open. I'm Jason Horton. I'm Rebecca Leib. And this is Ghost Town.

Right now, on Friday, we are at the tail end of Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates

the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It's kind of fun if you like drinking,

but also not fun if you like carbs. From childhood, I remember Passover being long, with a lot of

red meat, bad desserts, songs about goats, and the screen door cracked open for a guy named Elijah.

As a kid, I thought Elijah was some kind of invisible man or a ghost or a boring Jewish

Santa Claus that would show up when I was asleep or maybe just not paying attention, drink some

Cabernet and head out. He'd create a very cold draft in our dining room and was generally

annoying to me as he didn't bring any presents or add anything to my already pretty boring Passover

experience. Turns out, I was kind of right. Elijah is the Passover ghost and I have a new found

appreciation for his strange and fairly gross history of origin. Elijah was from Gilead,

an ancient part of Israel. Around 9th century BCE, he showed up to proclaim a drought because

the cult of Baal, an actual cult that worshipped a fertility deity, was running things in town.

Elijah challenges the cult of Baal to a kind of deity true God off up on a mountain top.

Sacrifices are placed on an altar, one to Baal and one to Elijah's God. The Baal

altar doesn't light, but Elijah's altar gets fired up right away. And then the drought ends.

He then goes around Israel, becomes friends with Moses, and matric style professes his allegiance

to an alternate reality, the God of Israel. He also proclaims that monotheism rules above all.

He kind of does this for the rest of his life. When he dies, he's taken up to heaven in a

whirlwind according to the Old Testament and made a prophet. Let's take a break.

Listen closely. I might just know what you're looking for. Maybe it's a little bit more

excitement in your life. A joke to the system. To get the blood pumping again.

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