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5-Reasons-To-Love-Sukkot-1 5 Reasons to Love Sukkot Sukkot is my favorite holiday. I told that to my mom the other day and she seemed almost confused. "Not Passover?", she asked me. “I thought you love Purim,” she said. It’s true, I do LOVE the rituals of the Passover seder and the craziness associated with Purim. In fact, I love every Jewish holiday. But there is something about Sukkot, I answered. Well that was not enough for my mom who continued to question me about Sukkot (to be fair, I think she was looking for justification for spending over an hour building our family sukkah). She wanted to know why. Why did I love Sukkot? I’ve decided to list the reasons I love Sukkot and hopefully you will be able to identify with at least one of them and maybe even learn to love Sukkot too! 1. Action upon action- In general, I think one of the most amazing things about Judaism is that so many our rituals are associated with action. It is not enough to think about our slavery in Egypt: we must taste the tears of our ancestors and the bitterness of slavery. Those actions transport us back centuries and help us truly understand the suffering and hardships of our ancestors. Sukkot is no exception. We build sukkot, eat in them, and dwell in them. Those actions transport us back thousands of years- even as far as biblical times. Those very actions help us directly connect with our heritage, as we have been living in huts since the time of the Israelites. It is so cool that we keep this custom thousands of years later. 2. Being an agrarian people was SO last millennium, but we bring it back- Last time I checked, your average 21st century Jew is not much of a farmer. Well, our ancient ancestors were farmers, which makes it really hard for us to relate to them because, well, we aren’t dependent on whether the rain will fall or our harvest will be sufficient. But Sukkot brings back our agricultural roots in a very relatable way. We may not be living in the fields to complete our harvests, but we do things (like living in the sukkah, shaking the four species) that connect us to the importance of agriculture and how it sustains us for a long time. 3. Welcome, Bruchim Habaim, to my crib, uh I mean my sukkah- Something strongly engrained into my value system is the importance of inviting guests. i grew up with a mother who would never stop inviting people over, especially for Jewish holidays. You need a place to go for Pesach? Come over both nights. You know someone Jewish who just moved to Orlando? Bring them too. Their extended family is in town? The more the merrier! And she always wonders how she ends up feeding 40+ people in one night… But it is through these customs where I learned the importance of guests. You learn from your guests, you form relationships with your guests, and you grow to appreciate your guests. Something cool about Sukkot is that you are supposed to invite people to your sukkah. The tradition of the Ushpizin relates to inviting seven important historical figures to your sukkah and this tradition shows us the value our guests can have in our sukkah and in our lives. 4. Where our food comes from is important, and the Torah thinks so too- One the modern applications of a harvest festival is the ability to recognize that even though we may not be harvesting our food ourselves, someone is harvesting it, and it comes from somewhere. The Torah cares about how our food is grown, how our animals are killed, and how our crops are harvested. The Torah teaches about the burnt offerings and other sacrifices that we had to make to God, showing that God is the ultimate source of our agricultural success and the food on our plate. We may not be able to apply these biblical obligations ourselves, but we can definitely look at the overarching theme of the sourcing of our food. Do you know where your food is coming from? How far removed are you from the process? 5. Shake Shake Shake- Easily one of the hardest Jewish concepts to grasp is the concept of an intangible supreme being. Something cool about the lulav is that we shake it in six directions to represent how God is everywhere. Did you catch that? A finite representation of God??? Even though God may be in many more directions than just six (who knows? maybe there are dimensions we don’t yet understand!), we are temporarily simplifying God’s presence to allow us to connect spiritually to something otherwise hard to materialize. THAT’S SO COOL. I just gave you five reasons to love Sukkot and I hope that you find meaning or resonance with at least one of them. I want to hear why you love Sukkot!! Tell me about it! Wishing you a very meaningful and enlightening holiday, Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom Sophie HaNegev Regional Rel/Ed VP .
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