The high holidays of Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur have come and gone and as we begin the new year of 5771 we embrace one of the final holidays of the season: Sukkot or ‘the feast of the tabernacles.’
A sukkah is an outside booth that is built with natural material with a roof that is built with leaves or palms that is just incomplete to reveal the stars in the sky. Sukkot is a unique holiday because it celebrates the permanence of God in an unstable structure which is the sukkah.
There are reasons why the sukkah is so powerful a symbol and has such strong emotional valence for modern Jews. The Torah dictates that for eight days of observance we Jews make the farewell of our holiday season one giant party connecting to the ancient harvest festival by celebrating the fragility of the sukkah.
The sukkah represents that which is spiritual in a world that has become heavily focused on the material. While the sukkah is not plush or fancy, it is among the most beautiful places one can find oneself, especially when it is decorated by the simplicity of children’s crafts.
With its roof open to the heavens to see the stars, it brings home its message of God’s presence and the fragility of life in God’s loving protectiveness and shelter, and the connection to God that we feel in the outdoors. Our homes are bigger, and our cars more powerful than the sukkah, but neither rival its spiritual size and power.
The sukkah is simple in a world that is increasingly more complex. Pirke Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers) teaches us: marbeh nechasim, marbeh d’aga — as we multiply our possessions, we multiply our aggravation. Wealthy people today often engage full-time mechanics in their extravagant housing complexes to be available to fix and maintain their multitudinous gadgets and machines.
The educated consumer will not buy anything mechanical or electronic without a long warrantee on parts and labor, and perhaps a long-term service contract to go with it. I am often made fun of because I still have failed to buy the newest iPod that is connected to the internet when only fifteen years ago it was a rarity to see someone with a cell phone.
We spend far too much time fixing, maintaining, and updating our fancy equipment in the pretense that our technologically filled lives just wouldn’t be the same without them. And yet, the more plugged in we become the more distant our lives feel from others.
Sukkot is a non technological holiday that bases its only richness on the connection to others in the sukkah.
The idea that Sukkot is one of the most joyous holidays in our Jewish calendar but so few of us commemorate it is sad but it is a reality in our Jewish world.
It is a reality that needs to be changed. So many times we stand for our faith to commemorate the sadness of someone passing but won’t take the simple act of embracing the joy our faith can give us.
The eight days of Sukkot are a joyous event that commemorate family and connection to each other and cumulates with our dancing with the Torahs, expressing our love of God. At the end of the holiday season God asks us for one more day to spend with him and that day needs to be one of joy and celebration.
The final act of the sukkah is its celebration of our simplicity before God. In the creation story in the Bible, we are told that humankind was created last, and it was for the following reason: if we become arrogant, we are reminded that the gnat was created before us.
There is something unique about finishing the holiday season under the stars as we eat and sometimes sleep and see God for what God truly is: something intimate and connected to everything we do and live. God is in that first ray of sun, that petal of a rose, but more importantly within our families.
The reason the sukkah is so impermanent is to reveal to us that the only true permanence is our family which is connected to us by God. When we close our holiday season we see the beauty in every aspect of our life by seeing God’s final act of creation, us. Tonight we Jews close out our holiday season, let’s close it with joy and love.
Chag Semiach.
Rabbi Jeffrey Lipschultz is the spiritual leader Beth Judah Temple in Wildwood NJ. He welcomes your comments at dvjewish@rof.net
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