We all know people who blame their every misfortune on their parents. Long after their teen years are over, often into their thirties, forties, and beyond, they continue to lay their own problems and their personal shortcomings at their parents' doorsteps.
A Judaism Large As Life: 350 Years of Jews in North America
As we prepare to celebrate Judaism’s most joyous Festival, Hag Ha-Sukkot, the Festival of Booths, we recall and re-enact our ancestor’s wanderings in the wilderness, and their sense of dwelling within God’s protective love – symbolized by the booths we continue to construct at this season. Such an occasion is a fitting time to consider another wandering of historic proportion, the 350th anniversary of Jewish settlement in North America, itself noteworthy and a cause for reflection.
Sukkot is the festival marking our turn from the introspection of Rosh Ha-Shanah and the inner work of Yom Kippur. On this Festival of Booths, we built shelters that are simultaneously frail and resilient, reflecting the existential reality of human life and community.
The great Jewish existentialist, Franz Rosenzweig, began his monumental philosophy of Judaism, The Star of Redemption with these words: All knowledge of the Whole has its source in death, in the fear of death.” That abiding fear, and the inescapable destination of all human lives, and of all human life, in death, is a fact beyond appeal. There are no exceptions, no delays, and no negotiations with our ultimate end.
For some of us, a dawning sense of adulthood came with our first awareness of death. Perhaps it was the death of a pet, perhaps it was the passing of a grandparent, but the realization that life had an end, that we would not last forever, changed each one of us in an instant.
Suddenly life was transformed from simple light and joy to a more complex and bittersweet mix. The melody of life switched from the major to a minor key.
Sukkot is a festival of striking beauty and contrasts. For one week each year, we abandon the stolid permanence of our homes and live, instead, in the fragile, temporary structure of sukkot (booths). These booths remind us that we do not truly own our possessions. Things that we hoard and accumulate we will one day pass on to others. They can be lost, or broken, or stolen. The only true possessions we own are deeds of care and service, mitzvot.
Surely the most famous passage from the Torah is the Shema, the verse from today’s Torah portion that proclaims: “Hear O Israel! The Holy One is our God, The Holy One alone.” That verse is recited twice during public prayer (morning and afternoon services) and once in bed before going to sleep for the night. Many synagogues emblazon those words above the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark, or on the wall of their Sanctuary. And, traditionally, those are the last words a Jew recites immediately before dying.
Many of the world religions share a great deal: a sense of wonder and marvel at the simple fact of existence, the miracle of creation and of life, the mystery of human consciousness, the intrusion of the sacred into the profane, the love of our fellow human beings and the pursuit of peace and of justice. Like other faiths, Judaism also cultivates an awareness of these laudable qualities. Just as many of the world’s religions trace their discovery of these traits to the example of a founder, so Judaism sees many of its highest values embodied in Moshe Rabbenu, our teacher Moses.
After the sin of Baal-Pe’or, when our ancestors began to worship an idol, God responded by unleashing a terrible plague. Sinners and innocent alike were stricken, and the plague was only stopped through the intercession of Pinhas. As remembered by the psalmist: “Then Pinhas stood up and vay-falel and so the plague was stayed, and that was counted to him for righteousness to all generations forevermore.”