Some say that Pinchas is the same person as Eliyahu Ha-navi (the prophet Elijah). We await his coming, as promised by the prophet Malachi, with great anticipation. Eliyahu will provide answers to all our questions, clarifying laws as well as facts. Thus, the word “teiku,” sometimes found in the Talmud following an unresolved question, is understood in folk etymology as an acronym for “Tishbi yetaretz kushiyot u’ba’ayot” (“Eliyahu will resolve all questions and difficulties”).
Here is an example of a law to be clarified. When collecting a debt, do we leave the debtor the items which he needs to support himself? After all, when people donate to the Beit HaMikdash, we take their needs into account. Does this apply to debts owed to people as well?
The Talmud (Bava Metzia 114a) records that this question was once answered by Eliyahu based on a gezeirah shavah. (By the way, his view was not accepted by all. Even those who chose to accept his view were not doing so because he was a prophet. As we know, the Torah is not in heaven, nor is a prophet permitted to make new laws. Rather, Eliyahu was no less a Torah scholar than anyone else, and might have even been better than most.)
Here are some examples of facts with which Eliyahu will help us. He will clarify whether certain terumah has become impure, and the status of a piece of meat which was out of a Jew’s sight. He will be able to adjudicate monetary disputes in which a rabbinic court could not reach a decision and the money was held in abeyance. These cases are all very specific.
Eliyahu will also clear up some general doubts found in rabbinic literature about how things work: Do people base a meal (kovea seudah) on wine in the same way that they do on bread? Would a dead person have allowed certain disrespect of his body on the part of his heirs? May we write tefillin on the skin of a kosher fish, or is it considered disgusting? To resolve these doubts, we will rely on the prophetic power of Eliyahu, whose arrival we eagerly await.