Leo Schaya was perhaps the most masterful interpreter of Jewish esoterism in the light of perennialist wisdom. In this essay, Schaya offers many keys to understanding the function of the prophet Elijah (or Elias) within Jewish mystical tradition, but then Schaya expands this, still using traditional Jewish sources, to encompass a universal function for Elijah. This mysterious prophet seems to have a function that should apply to all traditional peoples, namely reinvigorating the esoteric dimensions within their respective traditions in times of need. These times of need are particularly acute as the world lurches through its modern paroxysms toward the end of this cycle of time.

Besides Biblical descriptions, author Leo Schaya turns to some Talmudic and rabbinical writings and oral traditions to give a general, but also a more esoteric, understanding of Jewish doctrines concerning the Temple of Jerusalem. Schaya reviews a number of aspects under which the Presence of God dwells within the physical Temple, but also, by extension and in an immanent sense, within the heart of the Jewish seeker after God. The symbolism of the Temple's features is related, Schaya tells us, to spiritual realities that come to inhabit man's inner reality as well.