With the sounding of the Shofar at the close of Yom Kippur, we move quickly to the next stop on our annual Jewish time journey: Sukkot. “The” festival, according to our tradition, it speaks of the reminder of our dwelling in the Wilderness, in temporary huts, sukkot, that, in their fragility, can easily symbolize many things. We can see the fragility of life, we can, as so many now do, the link between tradition and the cause of the environment often represented by the lulav, etrog willow and myrtle. This is a festival, however, that has as its core, the idea of celebration, for the festival ends with Simchat Torah when so many will dance with Torah scrolls as we end one year’s cycle with the end of Deuteronomy and immediately begin Genesis.
The Torah texts that discuss Sukkot remind us of the linkage of the festival to the idea of the annual harvest. It is this idea, harvest, that I want to focus on for us this year. We are at the stage in our life where we can begin to “harvest” the life experiences we have. This is a time, for many, of great transition. Change is often a companion: or bodies, our relationships, our own view of life and our place in it. Simply put, this festival is an invitation to celebrate the life we have lived and dedicate ourselves to the desire that we continue to harvest life. As Mordecai Kaplan put it “The Sukkot festival, with its emphasis on joyous gratitude or happiness, is a protest not against civilization, but against its tendency to be a destroyer of happiness”.
Let me suggest that this message of harvest and joy in the life we have is a much needed one this year. There is so much anxiety in the air that it is good to take note that we have a festival that celebrates life. We are reminded of its’ fragility in the temporal nature of the sukkah, but the overarching theme of the holiday is one of celebration. We need to celebrate life, to harvest the good in it, to enjoy the fruits of our labors with the people that mean so much to us. The festival also reminds us that we are called to share the fruits of our life with others. Sukkot is mentioned in many Torah texts, and we read that when we harvest the field, we are to leave the corners of the field. Those unharvested corners are for the poor. This certainly relates to us now, for as we celebrate our lives, we are also asked to remember those whose circumstances may not match ours. The growing food insecurity in the country, the need for increased communal support and resources for people in need must be part of our “giving back” to our community.
One of the names for this holiday is z’man simchatainu. This is a “time for celebration”. It is also an invitation. The root for the word z’man: zion, mem, nun is also the root for the word for invitation. (hazmanah) Sukkot then is an invitation to celebrate our life, to harvest the moments, the memories, the accomplishments of our life and then to move forward, to continue to grow and learn and dream, and to share the bounty of our lives with others.
Chag Sameach Sukkot
Rabbi Richard F Address
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
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