I remember the Sukkot celebrations of my youth with a great deal of fondness. We did not build a sukkah at
our house, but where I grew up we actually used to go with volunteers
from our synagogue, Congregation Knesset Israel in Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, to a nearby evergreen forest where we had been permission
to cut down branches to use for the sekhakh.
Somebody had a pickup truck, and we loaded up the back. I remember
stringing up fruits - gourds and apples and pears and so forth - that
looked quite nice and festive a few days prior to the holiday, but by
the time Yom Tov rolled around, they were already looking pretty sad and
attracted a whole lot of yellowjackets. The bees were a nuisance during
qiddush, of course, but I seem to recall that nobody was ever actually stung.
Sukkot is the happiest holiday of the year - zeman simhateinu, the season of our happiness, as we refer to it when we recite “Ya’aleh veYavo”
during services this week. This is a festival of pure joy; in the Torah
reading for Thursday morning, for Shemini Atzeret, we will read from
Deuteronomy (16:15, p. 1084 in Etz Hayim) that in this season,
שִׁבְעַת יָמִים, תָּחֹג לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בַּמָּקוֹם, אֲשֶׁר-יִבְחַר יְהוָה: כִּי יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, בְּכֹל תְּבוּאָתְךָ וּבְכֹל מַעֲשֵׂה יָדֶיךָ, וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ.You shall hold a festival for the Lord your God seven days, in the place that the Lord will choose; for the Lord your God will bless all your crops and all your undertakings, and you shall have nothing but joy.
And
as if that were not enough, there are not one, but two additional
observances associated with this time that actually have the word
“happiness” (Hebrew: simhah) in them: Simhat Torah, and we all know what that’s about, and Simhat Beit HaShoevah, which was an ancient celebration during Sukkot that the Mishnah (Sukkah
5:1) describes as being the most joyous party of the year. It was a
ritual designed to muster the water up from the deep to meet the rains
that would soon fall from above (Ta’anit 25b), and ceased to be observed
after the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
But
let’s face it. When it comes to rituals, Sukkot is also the most
curious holiday for a few reasons. Its symbols and ritual items are,
frankly, strange. There is a strongly agricultural theme, and how do we
relate to that, as contemporary suburbanites? And also, there is just a
whiff of paganism - living in a temporary hut decorated with produce,
waving various types of flora around in unusual clusters and beating
them on the ground on Hoshanah Rabbah.
Furthermore,
this supremely happy holiday is just four days after the most solemn
day of the year. The juxtaposition is somewhat jarring. We go from
fasting to feasting.
But
it is this juxtaposition which tells us everything about what it means
to be a modern Jew. The whole range of contemporary existence is dense
and frenetic. Our lives have become concentrated, chock-full of one
thing after another, enhanced by the Information Age and the intrusion
of our workloads into our personal time and the overwhelming number of
extra-curricular activities our children are expected to check off. We
are becoming an episodic people, where the Jews pop in for one thing or
another from time to time, sandwiched in-between all our other
obligations. The modern family hardly has enough time to process where
it has been before heading off to the next item. Current events come and
go quickly; last week’s Facebook sensation is old news.
In
that climate, it almost makes sense to put Yom Kippur and Sukkot right
next to each other. They are almost polar opposites. But it also reminds
me that my task as a rabbi is to even out the distribution. Wouldn’t it
be a wonderful thing if the joys of Jewish life were highlighted as
much as the repentance-driven, awe and vulnerability themes of the High
Holidays?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody who showed up for Yom Kippur also built a sukkah? Consider the following:
Yom Kippur is a journey of the mind. Sukkot is of the body.
Yom Kippur is about seeking forgiveness for what we did wrong; Sukkot is celebrating doing right.
They
are the yin and yang of the Jewish calendar. They butt right up against
each other, but they are opposing forces. Theologically speaking,
Sukkot represents what I think we need more of in the Jewish world. Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur place God on the mountaintop or on a throne,
and we are lowly, frail creatures who can be terminated by God in an
instant. It speaks of fear and awe. Untaneh toqef qedushat hayom, ki hu nora ve-ayom.
Let us speak of the power of the holiness of this day, for it is
awesome and frightening. Who will live, and who will die, etc. We add an
extra word to Qaddish on those days: Le’eyla le’eyla (instead of only one le’eyla) - God is twice as far away from us, twice as high up in the heavens during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah / Ten Days of Repentance.
Yom
Kippur is about the distance between us and God. But Sukkot is about
narrowing that gap, getting closer to God by getting closer to nature.
The definitive sukkah experience is actually seeing the heavens through the sekhakh, about getting closer to God.
Sukkot
is a “let’s roll up our sleeves, get out there and do something”
festival. It’s about our own power, our ability to effect change with
our hands. God is the source of our strength, the force and inspiration
that works through us and within us to make things happen. But we
actually do the physical work.
Yom Kippur is about yir’at Adonai, fear of God. Sukkot is about El Hai VeQayyam. The living, ever-present God, who is there with us as we build and shake and celebrate.
Yom Kippur is about how our fate is in God’s hands. Sukkot is about how we have the ability to fashion our own lives.
Yom
Kippur is a synagogue-centered holiday. We spend all day in synagogue,
essentially (if not actually) filling the entire 25 hours with prayer.
Sukkot is about getting outside, about feeling open to the elements, as a
part of the greater whole of Creation. The Simhat Beit HaShoevah party took place on all the nights of Hol Hamoed, with instrumental music and dancing and food.
I could go on. But what do we learn from this?
First
of all, that we need both. Fasting and partying are right next to each
other; afflicting your souls is right up there with celebrating.
Second,
that, as modern people, we have inherited a Jewish world that
emphasizes the self-denial and soul-affliction far too much, at the
expense of the joy. Back in my engineering days, I had a friend, a
fellow chemical engineer who was not Jewish, and she married a Jewish
man. They would go to his family’s home for the High Holidays, and she
went a few times to synagogue with them. And the only word she could use
to describe the experience to me was “dour.” Not exactly a hearty
recommendation of the Jewish experience, right?
We
need the Jewish world not to de-emphasize the gravity of the High
Holidays, but rather to highlight the joy of Sukkot. I am not sure
exactly how to do this; we have reached a point where many of us think
that we have reached our quota for Jewish involvement if we show up for
an hour-and-a-half on Yom Kippur. One of the upcoming goals of the Great
Neck Shabbat Project (Oct. 23-25 - be there!) is to emphasize the value
of powering down and tuning into our day of rest and enjoyment. We are
hoping for a hefty turnout for all of the events. But that will be just
one Shabbat out of the year.
I
have another friend, a former congregant from my last cantorial
position before I came to Great Neck. He asked me this year for my help
in an as-yet-unnamed pilot program that will put actual sukkot in
the hands of Jews who do not yet have them. His thinking is that
Sukkot, as the festival that brings together joy and creativity, the
physical and the spiritual, and unites families together for meals and
celebration and extending hospitality to our ancestors (Ushpizin), has the potential to raise the bar for Jewish engagement in America. He donated three lovely, pre-fab sukkot for
us to distribute here in Great Neck. We held a contest, and there are
now a few more families on this peninsula engaged with the festival. His
goal is to scale this up with the help of other donors; the idea is
similar to that of PJ Library, which put free Jewish books in the hands
of families with children under the age of eight.
Perhaps
it’s merely a question of marketing: we have tried this year to make
sure that we emphasize all of the Sukkot-related events here at TIGN
with a handy-dandy reference guide (“Sukkot-at-a-Glance”). But maybe
this festival needs a marketing campaign: something like, “Join us for
the Jewish Thanksgiving! Turkey optional,” or “You don’t have to feel
guilty to celebrate Sukkot!” Other suggestions? (Post below.)
Marketing
or no, what we should be striving for is to emphasize the joyous
aspects of our heritage, and not just the weighty, dour ones. The
overarching message of Judaism is not, “Because that’s the way we’ve
always done it.” Rather, it is, because this means something, and you
need more joy in your life. Come and celebrate with us!
So please, let this year be a shanah tovah, a good year, and this festival a hag sameah, a joyous holiday.
~
Rabbi Seth Adelson
(Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck, Shabbat Hol Hamoed Sukkot, 10/11/2014.)
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