Comments (0)Lament To Joy
Parshat Erev Sukkot
October 2, 2009Rabbi Geoff Basik
Special to the Jewish Times
What began with the destruction of one house (the ancient Temple in Jerusalem on Tisha B’Av) now ends with the building of another house, the sukkah. When Sukkot is over, we move on into the New Year having gone from descent to ascent. From the lowest emotional point in the calendar, we end up at what is arguably he highest: z’man simchateinu, “the time of our joy.” What a journey!
In other years, we may have focused on the Four Species (myrtle, palm, willow and the citron) and the lessons about four different kinds of people, or four different aspects of ourselves. We have waved the lulav and etrog and contemplated the six directions (or seven if you add “inward”).
Or we may have focused on the historical associations (as Torah does), the booths we lived in during our wandering in the desert. Or we might emphasize the moral and religious lessons derived from this holiday — e.g., remembering lack in days of plenty, or building as an act of faith in God’s miracles and protection, or the socio-economic leveling effect. Perhaps we have contemplated the fragility and vulnerability of our material lives, asking, “From whence comes real security?”
Perhaps we have relived the Wilderness experience, where the light is such that things are crystal clear, so as to detach from our normal life in order to view it critically. Finally, we may have attended to the ushpizin, the seven Biblical shepherds invited as guests, each one representing some attribute. Nothing new here.
This year, it is the “joy” that captures my imagination. Torah says, “You shall rejoice in your festival…and you shall have nothing but joy” (Deut. 16:14). Nothing but joy. So what do we learn here? What does the timing teach us?
In the Second Temple period, this was a holiday of intense, even ecstatic celebration. According to the Mishnah, and perhaps with echoes of pagan rain-coaxing and sun-worshipping rites, there was a week of water pouring, music making and singing, gigantic candles, dancing with torches. Sukkot was the moment of fulfillment, of gathering in not only the harvest, but also the blessings that flow from repentance and forgiveness.
And therein lies a deeper lesson about joy, about happiness. It has to do with a certain quality of relationship, right relationship with self and family and friends and community and work … and God-liness. We live at the intersection of the material and the spiritual, the visible and the invisible, the personal and the social. Is it possible that one can be truly happy only after getting “right” and integrating all the dimensions?
As Torah indicates, Sukkot was observed with many sacrifices (so many that there are hints of messianic dreams, hence the haftarah from Zechariah), offerings of thanksgiving for the harvest blessing. That is, joy was \expressed through gratitude. Blessings (the harvest), then sacrifices (the mechanism for getting and staying right with God).
Or is it the other way around? Doesn’t a good relationship with God-liness, our awareness of (and gratitude for) abundance and connectedness, provide joy? (Conversely, God’s “anger” prevents the sheaf, the flow of blessings — rain, dew, grain, vine, fruits, etc.) This, I think, is the lesson of the trajectory from Tisha B’Av to Sukkot.
The entire holy day season seems to teach that attending to covenantal relationship, between our selves and others and with the potential holiness in the world, is the key that opens the flow of blessings and the gates of joy. That is the source of blessings. That is what was broken at Tisha B’Av, and what has been repaired (we hope) by now, the “time of our joy.” May we remain so. Nothing but joy.
Rabbi Geoff Basik serves Kol HaLev Synagogue.