Relive the wilderness experience

ISAAC KLEIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

Sukkot is the third of the pilgrimage festivals. It begins on the 15th of Tishrei and continues for seven days. The first two of these are celebrated as full holidays. The five days that follow are Hol Hamo'ed – weekdays that retain some aspects of the festival. The seventh day (the fifth of the intermediate days) is Hoshanah Rabbah, with special observances of its own. Two concluding days follow that are separate festivals and bear individual names: Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Sukkot commemorates an event or period in the history of the Jewish people, has an agricultural connotation and teaches a number of religious truths. The Bible stresses the historical aspect: "You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 23:42-43) The agricultural theme is indicated earlier: "When you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the Lord [to last] seven days." (23:29) Sukkot is thus a harvest festival during which we rejoice over the bounty of the harvest and are given an opportunity to thank God for His blessings.

While the sukkah symbolizes the historical aspect of the festival, the four species bring to mind the agricultural: "On the first day you shall take the product of hadar trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days." (23:40)

The names of the festival also reflect these various themes. The name used most often is Sukkot (Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles) and it is also called the Feast of Ingathering. While rejoicing is enjoined for all festivals, in the case of Sukkot an extra measure of enjoyment was prescribed: "And thou shalt rejoice in thy festival ... and thou shalt be altogether joyful." (Deuteronomy 16:14-16)

These names are also indicative of the religious truths that the festival seeks to impart. We noted that the reason for the sukkah is "that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt." The rabbis were not satisfied with the obvious meaning of this verse. While Rabbi Akiva says that the booths mentioned in the Bible were real booths in which the children of Israel dwelt while in the desert, Rabbi Eliezer suggests that they were clouds of glory with which God surrounded the children of Israel to protect them while they wondered in the desert. (B. Suk. 11b)

Using Rabbi Eliezer's interpretation, the building of the sukkah is thus a means of infusing faith in God, particularly in time of distress. Rabbi Akiva's interpretation is more suitable to the modern temper and it, too, suggests a significant truth.

The reminder of the period when the children of Israel sojourned in the desert is a motif that occurs again and again in the Bible. In the Talmud, the desert period is usually mentioned pejoratively, but in the Bible, particularly in the Prophets, it was considered an ideal time in Jewish history, a time when life was simple but noble. With longing, the prophet Jeremiah recalls: "I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown." (Jeremiah 2:2) When the children of Israel entered Canaan and encountered the vices and corruption of urban civilization, they looked back with nostalgia to the nomadic period of their history, when they were free of these corrupting influences. They saw in this nomadic period a set of standards by which they could purify the civilization of their day. They looked with admiration at the sect known as the Rechabites, who wanted to reproduce the life of the nomads in Canaan itself. (Jeremiah 35-6, 1 Kings 10:15) In our day, Sukkot should become a call to the ethical life, free from the corruption and vices of the affluent society.

Maimonides also gives the historical aspect a moral and ethical turn when he says that the purpose of remembering the days of the wilderness is "to teach man to remember his evil days in his days of prosperity. He will thereby be induced to thank God repeatedly and to lead a modest and humble life." (Moreh Nevukhim III:47)

A more pietistic tone is struck by the medieval moralist Isaac Aboab, who said, "The sukkah is designed to warn us that man is not to put his trust in the size or strength or beauty of his home, though it be filled with all precious things; nor must he rely upon the help of any human being, however powerful. But let him put his trust in the great God whose word called the universe into being, for He alone is mighty and His promises alone are sure." (Menorat Hama'or III, 4:6)

Rightly does Dr. Mordecai Kaplan conclude: "From the foregoing circumstances [that life in the wilderness was purer and freer than life in the civilization of Canaan] it follows that having the Israelites relive their wilderness experience on the festival of Sukkot [by living in a sukkah] was bound to place them in a frame of mind that enabled them to detach themselves from the order of life that they had come to accept as normal and to view it critically." (The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion)

The agricultural theme of the festival is called to mind by its other name: the Feast of Ingathering. The crops of the field having been gathered, the people rejoiced before the Lord in gratitude for the blessings that He bestowed upon them. When agriculture ceased to be the main occupation of the people, the theme of gratitude to God was still valid. Consequently, the symbolic expression of the agricultural theme through the four species received a new meaning.

The Midrash made the four species symbolize the need for the unity of the Jewish people that comes when each segment of the people receives due consideration. The Midrash says: "Just as the etrog has taste and fragrance, so there are in Israel men who are both learned and doers of good deeds; as the lulav, whose fruit is palatable but is without fragrance, so there are those who are learned but without good deeds; as the myrtle has a pleasant odor but is tasteless, so there are men of good deeds, but who possess no scholarship; as the willow is neither edible nor of agreeable fragrance, so there are those who are neither learned nor possessed of good deeds." (Wayiqra Rabbah 30:12) In binding the species together and pronouncing the benediction over them, we assert that the unity must include all segments of the community; only when each has its proper place, can there be a benediction.

Another comment of the Midrash stresses the unity of the human personality necessary for the moral life. On the verse "all my bones shall proclaim, '0 Lord who is like unto thee?' " (Psalms 35-10) the Midrash comments: "This verse refers to the lulav. The back of the lulav is like the backbone of man, the myrtle like the eye, the willow, the mouth, and the etrog, the heart. Thus David said: 'There are no limbs greater than these for they equal the entire body in importance; hence: all my bones will proclaim....' " (Wayiqra Rabbah 30:14)

This psychological insight suggests that the entire personality must be involved in the search for happiness. Happiness is experienced whenever human beings, in all their relationships, participate in the fulfilment of some specific need, or needs, and there is no inner conflict of the type which might lead to the disintegration of personality. (The Meaning of God)

The unity of the human personality and of the Jewish people leads our thoughts to the unity and interdependence of all humanity – i.e., to the messianic ideal. The messianic ideal is symbolized, according to the rabbis, by the sacrifice of 70 oxen (Numbers 29:13-34), corresponding to the proverbial 70 nations of the world, for whose welfare these were offered on the altar of the Temple in Jerusalem. (B. Suk. 52b) In this connection, the prophet Zechariah invited all the nations of the world to "Go up to Jerusalem from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles." (Zechariah 14.16)

Rabbi Isaac Klein is the author of A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, first published by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1979. This article is excerpted from the book.

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