Sukkot Without a Sukkah

חַ֧ג הַסֻּכֹּ֛ת תַּעֲשֶׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֑ים בְּאָ֨סְפְּךָ֔ מִֽגָּרְנְךָ֖ וּמִיִּקְבֶֽךָ׃
After the ingathering from your threshing floor and your vat,
you shall hold the Festival of Sukkot for seven days. 

וְשָׂמַחְתָּ֖ בְּחַגֶּ֑ךָ אַתָּ֨ה וּבִנְךָ֤ וּבִתֶּ֙ךָ֙ וְעַבְדְּךָ֣ וַאֲמָתֶ֔ךָ וְהַלֵּוִ֗י וְהַגֵּ֛ר וְהַיָּת֥וֹם וְהָאַלְמָנָ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בִּשְׁעָרֶֽיךָ׃
You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son and daughter,
your male and female slave, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan,
and the widow in your communities. 

שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֗ים תָּחֹג֙ לַה׳ אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בַּמָּק֖וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַ֣ר ה׳
כִּ֣י יְבָרֶכְךָ֞ ה׳ אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ בְּכֹ֤ל תְּבוּאָֽתְךָ֙ וּבְכֹל֙ מַעֲשֵׂ֣ה יָדֶ֔יךָ וְהָיִ֖יתָ אַ֥ךְ שָׂמֵֽחַ׃
You shall hold a festival for G-d seven days,
in the place that G0d will choose;
for the G-d will bless all your crops and all your undertakings,
and you shall have nothing but joy.

—Deuteronomy 16:13-15

Sukkot sure has started strange here in Massachusetts.

On Tuesday, the day after Yom Kippur, I put up my sukkah.

On Thursday, I took it down (the roof and the walls, but not the frame)—one day before the holiday was supposed to begin.

The reason is because of the Nor’easter that we’re currently experiencing in New England. Sixty mile-per-hour winds and up to eight inches of rain are predicted. It started Friday night (the first day of the festival) and, according to the weather app on my phone, the rain is predicted to continue through early Tuesday morning, and then sporadically throughout the rest of the week.

An email went through my community encouraging us to take down the walls and skach/roofing of our sukkot, so they don’t blow away in the gale-force winds! We’ll have to see if later in the week I’ll be able to reassemble our sukkah, to at least spend one or two days in it before the holiday is over.

This is an unprecedented situation for me. Sure, there’s almost always at least one rainy day during Sukkot when we have to go inside. But I’ve never been in the situation where I had to take down my sukkah due to the weather, and effectively don’t have one—perhaps for the entire duration of the holiday.

What does it mean to have Sukkot without a sukkah? It does prompt some observations about having to celebrate some of other Mitzvot of the holiday with even deeper intention.

First, a little background.  There are three unique Mitzvot for Sukkot:

·      Building a sukkah, and leaving our permanent housing and spending as much time in the sukkah as possible;

·      Waving the lulav and etrog; and

·      Rejoicing. More on #3 in just a moment.

Furthermore, there is a well-known principle that if the weather is awful outside, we are instructed to go inside to observe Sukkot. This begins with the Mishnah, which says:

כָּל שִׁבְעַת הַיָּמִים אָדָם עוֹשֶׂה סֻכָּתוֹ קֶבַע וּבֵיתוֹ עֲרַאי
.יָרְדוּ גְשָׁמִים, מֵאֵימָתַי מֻתָּר לְפַנּוֹת, מִשֶּׁתִּסְרַח הַמִּקְפָּה

For all seven days of the festival, our sukkah should become our primary dwelling
and our houses become temporary.

If it rains, at what point is it permitted to leave the sukkah?
If it’s raining enough to spoil a cooked dish.
—Mishnah, Sukkah 2:8

I thought the reason for doing this might be obvious, but I was surprised to find, from a cursory look at the legal codes and commentaries, no discussion about why we should leave the sukkah if the weather stinks. The Mishnah (and its commentaries), Gemara, Rambam, and Shulchan Arukh all explain when and how we should leave the sukkah and go inside—but none of them say why.

So I’m going infer a reason. I presume it has to do with the third special Mitzvah of Sukkot: the Mitzvah of rejoicing.

True, one is supposed to be joyful on all the holidays. But Sukkot is specifically designated by the Rabbis as Zman Simchateinu, “the Season of our Joy.” Even though all the holidays are occasions for joy, and about Shavuot the Torah also says, You shall rejoice before Ad-nai your G-d (Deut. 16:11), regarding Sukkot we are instructed twice to rejoice (Deut. 16:14, 15). In other words, if all the festivals call for celebration, on Sukkot we get a double dose.

So if the weather is awful, we have two Mitzvot in conflict: the commandment to dwell in the sukkah (and be miserable) versus the commandment to go indoors (and be happy).

And by telling us to go inside, the halakha determines that the double dose of simcha overrules the commandment to sit in the sukkah soaking wet!

This leads me to three observations:

(1) Sukkot is designed to connect us to the Land of Israel.

Most years, the primary behavior on Sukkot is: go outside! In Israel, this is the most beautiful time of the year: the heat of the Middle Eastern summer has abated, but the winter rains are generally still a few weeks off.  How wonderful to have a holiday that encourages to be outdoors, to see the stars and waning moon through the roof of the sukkah.

It wasn’t formulated for the climate of New England. There are years that we’ve been in our sukkot with ski jackets and space heaters. This year, we worried that the storm would blow our sukkot away. And next week, Jews around the world will start praying for rain—not because we need rain in Massachusetts, but because the very specific rainy season is about to commence in Israel.

All this demonstrates that the Jewish calendar is predicated on the climate of the Land of Israel. It’s yet another indication, as if we needed it, that no matter where our journeys have taken us, the Jewish people are indigenous to that place, our only eternal home.

(2)  How can the Torah command us to “be joyful”?

It’s an old dilemma: Who can control their emotions and feelings? How can the Torah command us what to feel?

The short answer is: we can’t and it doesn’t. The Rabbis explain that the commandment to “rejoice in your festival” means that certain behaviors, namely rituals associating with mourning, cease on the holiday. (It’s frustrating, but if one is sitting shiva and Sukkot arrives, the shiva period comes to an end.)

But there’s a longer and more spiritual answer. It has to do with what the nature of simcha/joy is really all about. The commandment is not as banal as an injunction to “just be happy.” It’s deeper than that.

Simcha is more about connecting to the Source of Life—meaning, G-dliness, why we’re put on this earth. All the holidays are about setting aside our daily concerns of work or school and connected with things that more Sublime. Sukkot is doubly so, because of its emphasis on gratitude at the harvest season.

(3)  The joy of Sukkot is at the heart of the whole thing.

Why were our ancestors so grateful at harvest time?

Because a harvest is fundamentally about: gratitude for promises from long ago that have come true. Many months ago, seeds were placed in the ground, with hope and faith that the rhythms of nature would work their wonders once again. Over the course of months, what was planted turned into a seedling, a plant, and ultimately bore fruit. No matter how much I learn about the biological processes involved—still, there is an element of awe and wonder as I gather it in. And that calls for gratitude—not just “happiness,” but being grateful for life and its blessings from deep within our soul.

I’m no farmer, but this metaphor for the realization of promises made long ago seems to me to be a spiritually provocative idea.

The Mitzvot of sitting in the sukkah and waving the lulav and etrog are catalysts for this kind of spiritual thinking. This year, at least for those who live near me, we’re stuck indoors. What do we do?

We have to embrace our special Sukkot challenge: to be more mindful than ever of our blessings, and to be that much more grateful.

Chag Samayach!

How Can We Celebrate Simchat Torah in 2024?

Like an insect fossilized in amber, Kibbutz Nir Oz is a place frozen in time—specifically, October 7, 2023. Nir Oz is one of the kibbutzim along the “Gaza envelope” in the Western Negev that were on the frontlines of the terrorist murders, rapes, and kidnappings on that horrible day.

And of all the images that remain seared in my mind, I can’t stop thinking of the kibbutz Sukkah that remains standing—now, one year later:

The 2023 sukkah from Kibbutz Nir Oz, still standing in the summer of 2024. Photos: NG

The roof is gone, the walls are falling down, but the sukkah is still there. And it is chilling to see.

A sukkah, by definition, is an impermanent structure. It’s designed to be flimsy and makeshift. By the end of seven days of exposure to the elements—and seven days of eating, singing, and hosting guests—a sukkah is supposed to look pretty dilapidated. The whole idea of this holiday is to prompt a mediation on the elements of our lives that are permanent and enduring and those that are fleeting and ephemeral. (And to prompt gratitude and delight in what we have; that’s where the “season of our joy” comes in.) And when the holiday is over, the sukkah gets taken down and packed away until next year; a “permanent sukkah” is supposed to be contradiction in terms.

So I sit in my Sukkah in Massachusetts, and I reflect on those things in my life which are truly enduring, and those which are transient and can disappear in a heartbeat. I look out at the gorgeous technicolor leaves on the trees, and know that soon they’ll be on the ground, with snowfall not far behind. It gives me some sense of eternity, but little peace this year.

Because I keep thinking of the Nir Oz sukkah, with no one to refurbish it or renew it for 2024. It’s frozen in 2023.

Now the culmination of Sukkot and the entire fall holiday season is drawing close: Shemini Atzeret on Wednesday night and Simchat Torah on Thursday night. And as these arrive, it’s impossible to separate them from the Yartzeit (the one-year anniversary according to the Jewish calendar) that they represent: last year’s cursed Simchat Torah, when over 1,200 Israelis were massacred in their homes and at the Nova Music Festival.

Simchat Torah is, of course, supposed to be a day devoted to raucous, joyful simcha—a time of dancing in the streets with the Torah in our arms. How in the world are we supposed to do that this year, in the shadow of the Yartzeit and knowing that 101 hostages still remain in the dungeons of Gaza?

That question is a popular topic of conversation in the Jewish press and Jewish blogs this week. Some teachers have reminded us that Jews danced with the Torah during many dark times in the past. (I recall the story—perhaps only legendary—of Leo Baeck asking a child in Theresienstadt if he knew how to recite the Sh’ma. When the boy said yes, they hoisted him up in a chair and said, “You will be our Torah for Simchat Torah this year,” and commenced to dancing around him.)

I can only offer my own responses. I won’t cancel Simchat Torah this year, nor will I boycott my community’s dancing with the Torah. Part of me will do so out of defiance. Hamas will not strip me of my Jewish observances, nor will antisemitic professors or Students for Justice in Palestine or other apologists for terrorism. I will dance with the Torah because you can’t stop me; that’s a cord of defiance that runs through my nervous system. Zionism taught me, among many things, not to be a victim.

But I’ll dance for a holier reason, too. Here, I recall a lesson that Danny Siegel first taught me many years ago. He taught me that the Hebrew word שמחה/simcha can’t be reduced to a simple meaning, “joy” or “happiness.” How do we know that?

We know that because Judaism has a crucial idea called שמחה של המצווה/simcha shel ha-mitzvah, “the simcha of doing a Mitzvah.” And there are some Mitzvot that are inherently sad, such as: visiting someone in a cancer hospital, or preparing a body for burial, or making a shiva call. All these things should be done in the spirit of שמחה של המצווה, but they can hardly be considered “happy” or “joyful.” So a different principle, a spiritual one, must be at play here.

That’s where Danny (I don’t recall if he was quoting another teacher or book, or if the teaching is his own) proposed that simcha needs a more refined definition. Simcha means something like: the joy that comes by connecting ourselves to the Source of Life and Existence. That is, when you find yourself doing what you know you were made to be doing, the reason for which you’re here.

Musicians speak of this as “being in the pocket” and athletes talk about the “x-factor.” For Jews, this is the spirit in which we do Mitzvot, the purpose for which we are made. We do Mitzvot, and that is, in a deep and primal sense, joyful—even if the Mitzvah of the moment is honoring the dead or comforting mourners. Doing Mitzvot with full intention connects us to one another, to our history, and ultimately to G-d.

So on Simchat Torah, let’s dance. Perhaps the dance will be subdued, or, conversely, perhaps it will be more spirited than ever, in order to push back the darkness. No matter how you celebrate, let’s celebrate that Torah and its eternal promise of Life, renewed—even as we recommit ourselves to work to Bring Them All Home.

May these final days of this holy season bring you blessing, hope, and Simcha.

Rain (I Don't Mind) - For Shemini Atzeret

שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֔ים תַּקְרִ֥יבוּ אִשֶּׁ֖ה לַה' בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁמִינִ֡י מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ֩ יִהְיֶ֨ה לָכֶ֜ם
וְהִקְרַבְתֶּ֨ם אִשֶּׁ֤ה לַֽה' עֲצֶ֣רֶת הִ֔וא כָּל־מְלֶ֥אכֶת עֲבֹדָ֖ה לֹ֥א תַעֲשֽׂוּ׃

Seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to Adonai. On the eighth (ha-shemini) day you shall observe a sacred occasion and bring an offering by fire to Adonai; it is a solemn gathering (atzeret) you shall not work at your occupations. (Leviticus 23:36)

The holiday called Shemini Atzeret (literally, “the gathering on the eighth day”) is for many people the phantom, forgotten festival in Jewish life. Even Jews who determinedly spend their week in the Sukkah might be hard-pressed to say what, exactly, that eighth day is all about.

The 23rd day of the seventh month is the culmination of a three-and-half week period full of holidays: Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot have all preceded it. It arrives eight days after Sukkot begins, the final punctuation mark on this festival-rich season.

This prompts the Rabbis to ruminate about how Sukkot in the autumn complements Pesach in the spring: just as Pesach is the 7-day pilgrimage festival celebrating the spring planting, Sukkot is the 7-day pilgrimage which rejoices in the fall harvest. Passover is “capped” after 50 days by a holiday that is called Atzeret (we call that early-summer holiday Shavuot). So, for the sake of symmetry, Sukkot should also be “capped” by an Atzeret.  (But why isn’t it 50 days later? The midrash answers: because winter is coming, and a pilgrimage in the middle of winter’s rain and snow would be too arduous for the Jews.) (Midrash Tanchuma, Pinchas 15)

But the special identity of this day is far from clear, and the Torah doesn’t make it much clearer when it discusses ancient Israel’s festivals. In Leviticus, the Atzeret sounds like the capstone to the seven days of Sukkot, and is a holiday in its own right (“you shall not work at your occupations”). In Numbers, a large numbers of sacrifices are made on each day of Sukkot; on the eighth day, a more modest offering is prescribed, indicating that the eighth day was connected to Sukkot, and yet separate and distinct from it (Numbers 29: 35-38). And in Deuteronomy, there is no mention of an eighth-day assembly after the seven days of Sukkot (Deut. 16:13-15)!

Later in the Bible, we read of the enormous Sukkot celebrations that took place in Jerusalem. When King Solomon dedicated the Temple on the Sukkot holiday, Shemini Atzeret is the “one more day,” for the king (and the King of Kings) to spend together with the people of Israel; a little more time to linger together before everyone trudges home to face the approaching winter (I Kings 8:66).

Consider at what a sweet image that is. Long before rabbis griped and groaned about Jews who couldn’t be bothered to show up to synagogue more than twice a year, the Bible was imagining God, surveying the Sukkot masses in Jerusalem, saying, “This time we’ve had together during the holidays has been so special—for Me! Stay just a little longer, just one day, so we can savor it just a little more.” That was Shemini Atzeret.

By the generations of the Talmud, Shemini Atzeret (like many of the Torah’s holidays) had acquired some new features. It developed one overarching theme: water.

Shemini Atzeret became the time when the Rabbis would pray that life-giving rains would soak the land of Israel. They (as do we) begin to insert the words “you cause the wind to blow and the rains to fall” in the second blessing of the Amidah on Shemini Atzeret. And one of the key features of the liturgy on this day is an elaborate piyyut called Geshem (“Rain”).

Water is a historical worry for the dwellers of the Land of Israel. Diaspora-dwellers might find this hard to understand. In North America, rain can fall pretty much any time in the calendar year. Not so for Israel; almost all the annual rainfall comes down during a five-month rainy season from November to March. An ancient farmer, dependent on winter rains for a successful sowing season in the spring, would be very much aware if the rain was even just a few weeks late. Thus we can understand their fear and trepidation when rain had yet to arrive. An entire tractate of the Mishnah, Ta’anit, is devoted to the prayers and fasts that are prescribed for the community when the rain has failed to come.

The Torah testified that the Land of Israel was dependent on the rain. By contrast, the land of Egypt did not rely on rain; rather, the irrigation of Egyptian fields came from the overflowing waters of the Nile River. The 3rd-century apocalyptic prophet Zechariah knew this; as he called upon God to punish the oppressive nations of the world with drought, he acknowledged that drought will not be much of a punishment against Egypt. Don’t worry, the prophet says; Egypt will get its own special, appropriate form of discipline! (Zechariah 14:18).

But the Land of Israel is different. Israel depends on God’s mercies, expressed through rainfall:

כִּ֣י הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר אַתָּ֤ה בָא־שָׁ֙מָּה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ לֹ֣א כְאֶ֤רֶץ מִצְרַ֙יִם֙ הִ֔וא אֲשֶׁ֥ר יְצָאתֶ֖ם מִשָּׁ֑ם
אֲשֶׁ֤ר תִּזְרַע֙ אֶֽת־זַרְעֲךָ֔ וְהִשְׁקִ֥יתָ בְרַגְלְךָ֖ כְּגַ֥ן הַיָּרָֽק׃
הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֨ר אַתֶּ֜ם עֹבְרִ֥ים שָׁ֙מָּה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ אֶ֥רֶץ הָרִ֖ים וּבְקָעֹ֑ת לִמְטַ֥ר הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם תִּשְׁתֶּה־מָּֽיִם׃

For the land that you are about to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come. There the grain you sowed had to be watered by your own labors, like a vegetable garden but the land you are about to cross into and possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rains of heavens. (Deut. 11:10-11)

Worrying about water is still the case today. A visitor to the Dead Sea cannot help but notice that this marvel is rapidly dissipating; it recedes a few dozen meters each year. The water level of the Kinneret precipitously rises and falls. And the battle over control of aquifers and water-sources is part of the realpolitik between Israel and her neighbors.

Today, Israel is the world’s greatest water innovator. It has successfully deployed technology, conservation, and good management to meet the water needs of its citizens and its crops—with enough left over that it even exports water to its neighbors! (In the Boston suburbs, by contrast, it seems like every summer there is a drought and the towns rush into panic-mode, limiting the amount of water that people can use.)  The themes of water scarcity and how Israel has addressed it are discussed in the recent book Let There Be Water by Seth M. Siegel.

The Sages of the Talmud, as was their wont, took these themes and spiritualized them. In Babylonia, drought was less of a worry than it was in the Land of Israel. So for the Rabbis, rain became a symbol of God’s benevolence and spiritual openness. (The Beatles knew this too.)  אין מים אלא תורה says the Talmud (Bava Kamma 17a); “Wherever the Torah mentions ‘water,’ read ‘Torah’ instead.”  They make a comparison: Just as rain delivers physical sustenance, Torah brings spiritual sustenance.

Shemini Atzeret, then, has a symbolic and deeply powerful meaning to those who are open to it. On Sukkot, we expressed our gratitude for the harvest of blessings with which we are surrounded. As the holiday concludes, we pray for life-giving waters that will sustain us and create a fertile environment for blessings yet to come. If this can happen, then we know that we can find the resources and strength to face the long cold winter ahead.