Can one person change the world?

That is the question at the end of the tractate Sanhedrin. The word "Sanhedrin" means the supreme judicial, civic, legal, religious authority in ancient Israel. The Talmudic tractate Sanhedrin is about justice-the human beings, institutions, procedures and protocols, evidentiary rules, safeguards, that enable human beings to create and sustain a just society.

Because justice in this world is so elusive, Sanhedrin's final chapter deals with other-worldly matters of the world to come (olam ha'ba) and the resurrection of the dead (techiyat hameitim). If we do not get justice in this world, perhaps we might get it in the next. Impossible to prove or disprove concepts like the world to come and resurrection of the dead might be a consolation for those living in a current reality that is, as Thomas Hobbes put it, "nasty, brutish and short."

Justice is so urgent. Justice is so hard. Sometimes we fail. Which leads to the last question of this tractate: Can one person change the world? Not can one person change his or her own world? Rather, can one person change the world?

Sanhedrin's answer to its own question is complex. It seems to answer that question yes. But the person it talks about right before the boffo end is none other than the prophet Elijah, who famously makes his appearance at the end of our seders. Everything about Elijah is ambiguous, which the tractate itself will bring out and highlight.

On the eve of Passover, we will consider Sanhedrin's question of the power of an individual to change the world by examining the complicated figure of Elijah. The subtext question in our conversation: Do you believe you can, or that you cannot, change the world?