The Season of Our Rejoicing

If we've done the month of Elul, Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days of Awe, and Yom Kippur correctly, when we arrive today at Sukkot, the holiday we call Zeman Simchatanu —the season of our rejoicing, we are indeed filled with a sense of joy. Deep, soul-searching reviews can leave one stumbling for firm footing, for a sense of what's good about me and the world. And given so many recent events, we find ourselves wondering, too often, what is good about the world?

Sukkot is here to remind us. (Pronounced sue-coat).

Sukkot is the plural of sukkah (pronounced sue-cah), and means, simply, booth or hut. It refers to the little temporary huts farmers built to shelter them during the hard work of the fall harvest. They were temporary structures, built annually and taken apart when the harvest was over, carefully built again the next year.

Why in modern times, and especially those of us who are decidedly not farmers or harvesters, would we re-enact this harvest hut building ritual, and refer to is as our season of rejoicing?

Sukkot is here to remind us of a few things.....  that we are called to experience joy and delight. The hot summer has ended, the harvest is bountiful and will take us through a winter while the earth sleeps and does not bring forth its bounty. This is the "pause the refreshes" before the long winter chill and nap.

Sukkot also calls us to remember that all things and people are temporary and impermanent. None of us will live forever, and none of the things we have accumulated will either. All things pass. We are vulnerable, but connected to one another and the earth. Before the winter takes over, it is time to gather together,  harvest, share the bounty, and honor the earth which gives us food. The only thing permanent is impermanence.

To do this, we build temporary huts where we eat, share meals, invite guests, and decorate with simple hand made garlands from nature. The roofs of our little huts are to be made only with living materials, and we must be able to see a bit of the day's sky and the night's stars through it, reminding us to stay connected. To remain grounded in the earth while looking up towards the heavens.

Our dwellings have 3 to 3 1/2 walls. They are not to fully protect us, only to provide a bit of relief from the wind and rain and sun. Nothing can fully protect us from the harsh realities of life.  And notice that there are not 4 walls; these are not fully enclosed structures. Why? Because our doors are open; we welcome all. Our sukkot prayers even invite in "invisble" guests! In this way, it is like many Native American ceremonies where we call in the keepers of the directions, the grandmothers and grandfathers who have gone before us, showing us the way.

Passover, our spring festival, is rooted in the past. It is the celebration of the story of our deliverance from slavery into freedom. Sukkot, on the other hand, is a festival which looks ahead. It is an appropriate bridge from the days we have spent reviewing our behavior of the past year, and, after turning, t'shuvah, we now look ahead to the future and how we will be different.  

Sukkot gives us that. Sukkot reminds us that the seeds we planted in the spring are what we now reap in the fall. So, too, our thoughts and behaviors. If we want different results next Yom Kippur, today is the day we plant different soul seeds. Today, and moving forward.

Sukkot rolls around directly after Yom Kippur, after the sackcloth and ashes have been removed, to tell us to embrace joy, but to do so remembering that we are fragile. Life is fragile. The earth is fragile. All of it is temporary. No home is permanent. Floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes.... they can erase great swaths of "permanent" structures in a heartbeat.

Our season of rejoicing is grounded in our fragility and our dependence on nature. We modern types like to forget that. We like to think we are well protected inside our sturdy, well-built, climate-controlled solid walls. The only nature many of us get are the views out of our windows. Our food comes from the grocery store, not the farmer who has labored and toiled under sometimes severe weather conditions so that we may eat. Sukkot calls us not to forget.

Sukkot is a symbol of the world to come, a world where all who seek are welcome in the tabernacle of peace. Every Shabbat we pray, asking for a sukkat shalom,  which is to say, a “tabernacle of peace,” to be spread over us. And for the next week, we live in those sukkot shalom, those peace huts. And we don't just remember the past; we look ahead to build a better future, to be better people and more peaceful people. Given the Las Vegas event, I say Amein to that!

These are the lessons of Sukkot. This is the season of our rejoicing. In the face of so much fragility, let us move ahead towards the only things that are real.... What is real? What remains real are few, but important: love, community, our interdependence with one another and with nature, working together, seeking survival through the harsh seasons of life. We do this with two feet on the ground and a star-filled sky above. We are physical AND spiritual. We are alone AND together. We are independent AND dependent AND interdependent. We are temporary, AND our love is eternal. Our souls live on. What soulful legacy will we leave?