Sukkot
Called hag HaAsif,
the Festival of Gathering, Sukkot always falls on a full moon. The Jewish lunar year operates on a thirty
day cycle that begins with a new moon and when the moon reaches its apex it is
always full. Spreading it light across
the heavens Sukkot is a lively time of celebration at the great harvest.
We create booths called Sukkot, usually small scrappy
structures that barely make it through the week standing. That is no little matter because Sukkot
celebrates temporality. Just as the moon
grows and then declines before it cycles anew so too we grasp the final wisps
of summer-fall.
There are three primary reasons for building Sukkot. The first, and best known, is that it
represents the fragile and temporary huts our ancestors lived in during their
years in the desert wilderness. It was a
long time spent meandering through the Sinai desert. Forty years our ancestors followed the path
that led to the Holy Land. We reconstruct structures similar to those of
the past in an effort to keep alive our understanding of their trek and our
connection to them.
At the same time the Sukkot also bring us to the time of
their children who settled in Israel
and began to work the land. As people of
the soil they worked to ply the soil, prayed for rain, and reaped the
harvest. Often times, when the crops
grew ripe the Jews had to stay close to their fields in order to attend to the fruits
and vegetables before they began to rot.
Now they created booths just like their parents. This time it had a different purpose: the
Sukkot were temporary dwellings for the freemen of tilled the land. When the harvest was completed they returned
to their homes with their bounty.
The Sukkot also reach back to the days of wandering when the
Clouds of Glory accompanied the people through the desert. Not only did these Clouds stay with the Jewish
people but, more importantly, they were signs of God’s unwavering Presence. Light and floating above their heads, the
roofs of the Sukkot are likewise frangible and almost seem to float above the
walls.
In one of the holy prayers of the evening we invoke the
memory of these Clouds of Glory by asking God to keep us safe under His
protective Sukkah.
Sukkot bears another name, Z’man Simchateynu, the Time of our Joy. There is a unique reason for this magnificent
name. Five days earlier, on the tenth of
the lunar month, was Yom Kippur. A long period
of contrition, wailing, and fasting Yom Kippur is the most solemn of all days. The Lord sits enthroned in Judgment making final
decrees about the future of humanity, the world and each of us specifically. The austerity of the process is leaden and
difficult.
Emerging from the severe judgments and introspection of Yom
Kippur we give ourselves over to mulling life’s meaning. We have passed through the well of time that
affords personal change and salvation to come to another level of existence. We transition from such severity to a thoughtful
contemplation of the world and our place in it.
That is why Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, has such an important
place on the holy day. Kohelet questions
the underlying meaning of everything we do.
It challenges us to ponder what we work for, why we work, who we love
and how we are loved.
Unlike Yom Kippur,
Kohelet in the Sukkah, is more philosophical, contemplative. Like Yom Kippur, it has the potential to
bring us up to another higher, level of living and appreciation.