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Torah Sparks rejoicing”? The Talmudic rabbis, amidst a discussion of the nature of the Sukkah, begin to hint at an answer to this question, offering insight into the meaning of Sukkot and its nuanced emotional valence. TORAH SPARKS The first chapter of the Talmudic tractate about Sukkot opens with a debate about the structure of the Sukkah Shabbat Hol Hamoed Sukkot and its architectural requirements. How tall may the walls September 25, 2021, 19 Tishrei 5782 of a Sukkah be? Must a Sukkah be strong enough to Torah: Exodus 33:12-34:26; Numbers 29:23-28 withstand heavy sea winds? What if a Sukkah is smaller Haftarah: Ezekiel 38:18-39:16, Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) than four square cubits in area, or can fit only one person not including the table where he or she eats? What if it’s built atop a wagon or a ship? As the rabbis demonstrate, Gone With the Wind the answer to all of these questions hinges on the extent Ilana Kurshan to which the Sukkah is regarded as a temporary structure. Everyone agrees that the mitzvah to dwell in a Sukkah is This coming Shabbat we will read the book of Kohelet, as for seven days alone, but how solid and stable must the we do every year on the Shabbat of Hol HaMoed Sukkot. Sukkah be? The Babylonian sage Abaye contends that the The book of Kohelet, one of the five Megillot, is about the sages are divided about this matter – some hold that a vanity and futility of all human pursuits. The author, Sukkah must be fit to last more permanently, while others traditionally thought to be King Solomon, writes about maintain that the Sukkah should be an inherently loneliness, the tears of the oppressed, the hollowness of temporary structure (Sukkah 7b). wealth, the transience of life, and the similar fate that awaits the righteous and the wicked, and the wise and the Rabbi Eliezer is listed among those sages who argue that foolish alike. The book’s images – which include a Sukkah must be fit to be a permanent structure; in snakebite, stillbirth, dead flies, and the relentless rising contrast, his student Rabbi Akiva maintains that a Sukkah and falling of the sun – seem to have nothing to do with is inherently temporary, and thus it need not be strong the holiday of Sukkot, which is at once a harvest festival enough to withstand uncommonly strong winds (23a). in which we celebrate our bounty and a commemoration Their disagreement is interesting in light of another of God’s loving care for the Israelites during our debate between them, about the nature of the Sukkot we wilderness wanderings. Why do we read such a are commanded to dwell in on the holiday. Drawing on depressing book on the holiday known as “the time of our the verse in which God commands us to dwell in Sukkot “in order that future generations may know that I made Sukkot, like the book of Kohelet, is about the relationship the Israelite people live in Sukkot when I brought them between the temporal and the eternal, reminding us of out of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43), Rabbi Akiva argues that what truly endures. All year we can delude ourselves into the requirement is to dwell in leafy-roofed huts – actual thinking that our houses and possessions will be ours Sukkot. But his teacher Rabbi Eliezer disagrees, insisting forever, but on Sukkot we realize the vanity of that that Sukkot refer to the clouds of God’s glory which assumption. Nothing we own is truly ours; we are at best protected the Israelites in the wilderness (Sukkah 11b). custodians for a world God created and entrusted to our And so Rabbi Akiva, who holds that the Sukkah is care. Our time on this earth, too, is inherently temporary inherently temporary, also understands the Sukkah as a – one generation comes and another goes, like the physical structure; whereas Rabbi Eliezer, who holds that abundant harvest of the fall that dwindles in the winter the Sukkah must be fit to last more permanently, months, and like the leafy branches that adorn our understands the Sukkah as a reference to God’s presence. Sukkah but will soon wither and crumble to dust. “We live on this vast earth for such a short while,” writes poet On Sukkot we realize that Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer Edward Hirsch, “that we must mourn and celebrate right are both right. The physical structures we build on now.” On Sukkot we rejoice at the knowledge that Sukkot, like most anything human beings construct, will through the very precariousness of our temporary not last forever; only God’s protective presence endures structures, we can find shelter and shade, beauty and eternally. It is for this reason that Kohelet is so bounty and blessing. appropriate to read on this holiday, as Rabbi Uri Brilliant and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks have noted. Kohelet teaches that everything material is temporary; a rich man hoards wealth only to find that it is suddenly lost in an unlikely venture. “Getting and spending we lay waste our powers,” as Wordsworth put it. And yet God’s glory and God’s sheltering presence are permanent and enduring, as the book of Kohelet concludes: “The sum of the matter, when all is said and done: Revere God and observe His commandments, for this is the whole of man” (12:14). On Sukkot a keen awareness of temporality intensifies our yearning to know the comfort of God’s eternal presence. Be Present Vered Hollander-Goldfarb Text: Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) 3:1-11 Commentary: R. Joseph Kara Kohelet 3:2-3 1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every A time to give birth - When a child is born to a person, purpose under the heaven: he is happy, and he rejoices with others. But if he were to 2A time to give birth, and a time to die; think during the party and happiness that this child born to A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is him will eventually die, he would not rejoice over him; planted; ….Similarly all of these “times”: sometimes he brings 3A time to kill, and a time to heal; things that start with happiness and end with sorrow, and A time to break down, and a time to build up; sometimes things that start in sorrow but end in 4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; happiness… and the end explains that the Holy One, A time to mourn, and a time to dance; blessed by He, withheld the future from his creations: man 5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones cannot find out from the beginning to the end (v.11). For if together; a person knew what would be in the end, he would not A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; rejoice at a time of joy, nor feel sorrow at a the time of 6A time to seek, and a time to lose; mourning. A time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7A time to rend, and a time to sew; • R. Kara is not dealing with the physical events listed A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; but rather with our emotional involvement with their 8A time to love, and a time to hate; occurrence. According to his understanding, why is A time for war, and a time for peace. it imperative that “time” is divided? When do you …11He has made every thing beautiful in its time; …yet find it difficult to “live in the moment” as R. Kara man cannot find out the work that God has done from the suggests? beginning to the end. • Why, according to R. Kara, do we not know more • Is time indeed divided? Should it be? Can times about the future? In your opinion, would such overlap? If you were to create categories of time, knowledge advance or hinder us? Why? what would your list look like? • The “times” come in pairs. What is the relationship between them? Are there pairs that you feel are not properly matched? Why? Endings and Beginnings Just as we have interpreted every defeat of Israel as a Bex Stern Rosenblatt theological lesson in God’s might in punishing Israel and bringing Israel back onto the correct path, here too defeat The Tanakh has a pretty specific idea of how the apocalypse is a learning experience. and its aftermath is going to play out. Using language and imagery that are similar to the ways it described the The next stage of the apocalypse is the destruction of God. destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the Tanakh We read God telling Ezekiel to tell Gog of his coming describes an epic final battle and truly gruesome casualties. destruction: “On the mountains of Israel you shall fall, and This is the content of our Haftarah portion, Ezekiel 38-39, all your divisions and the people that are with you. I will which we read over Hol HaMoed Sukkot. It is hard to read make you food for carrion birds, every winged thing, and for and hard to know what tone or mood to read it in. beasts of the field. On the surface of the field you shall fall, for I have spoken, said the Master, the LORD.” Those very The end of days happens in parts. First, God uses Gog as animals which had seemed to be undone in the undoing of God’s instrument, to wreck destruction on Israel and on the creation now rise up to feast on the one who tried to destroy earth.
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