Sukkot Message 5785

Originally shared with the SJCS community in October 2024 to mark Sukkot 5785

Distinct & Together: A Message for Sukkot

With thanks to my wife Laurie Mendelson and my friend Sharon Freundel, both of whom helped to shape my thinking, as – of course! – did Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, zt”l. And with loving thoughts of my parents – Ephraim and Esther Zimand, z”l, who provided me with so many extraordinary memories and formative experiences, in the sukkah and in so many other places.

Our special holiday now underway – Chag HaSukkot/חג הסוכות (The Holiday of the Temporary Dwellings) – offers studies in contrast.

From its Biblical origins, the festival marks, at its core, the culmination of the harvest and thus the end of the agricultural year. Indeed, one of its alternate names is Chag HaAsif/חג האסיף (The Holiday of the Harvest).

Even as Sukkot marks endings, it also celebrates beginnings, coming just two weeks after Rosh HaShana, regarded as the anniversary of creation itself. Further, the festival’s added eighth day (or ninth outside the land of Israel) marks the completion of the cycle of Torah portions, combining readings of the very last verses of the Torah with the very first in the celebration of Simchat Torah/שמחת תורה (The Joy of the Torah).

And along with the celebration of culminations and new beginnings, the core symbol of the holiday honors transitions, with the practice of symbolically dwelling for a temporary period in an impermanent structure, honoring the transitory period in the history of the Ancient Israelites as they made the 40-year geographic and also sociological journey from slavery in Egypt to autonomy in the land of Israel.

Culmination, new beginnings, and transitions. These stand as distinct features of the celebration of Sukkot, and they come together in the mix as well.

An additional contrast lies at the heart of the holiday. Its traditional names also include the designation of Zman Simchateinu/זמן שמחתינו (The Time of Our Happiness). Yet, the special text associated with the holiday and read as part of its liturgy presents some of the dourest passages found in the Hebrew scriptures. That text is the scroll of Kohelet/קהלת (Ecclesiastes, with the original Hebrew incorporating the root k-h-l, signifying community and gathering, just as the Greek origin of the English title, Ἐκκλησιαστής, does).

The second verse of Kohelet sets tone with these notable words:

Havel Havalim, Amar Kohelet, Havel Havalim, HaKol Havel

הבל הבלים אמר קהלת הבל הבלים הכל הבל

The opening passage, oft expressed in English as “vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” actually defies easy translation. Other versions reference “utter futility” and “meaninglessness,” and we can find still more. Surely not coincidental, the Hebrew root used repeatedly in this verse – h-v-l –also forms the name of the very first figure to die in the Hebrew scriptures – not Adam, but his son Hevel/הבל (Abel), murdered by his brother Kayin/קין (Cain). However we understand the theme contained in the words “Havel Havalim,” they surely suggest something distinct from happiness. The most compelling translation I have encountered ties the name Hevel and the use of the word “Havel” here to “fleeting breaths.” Everything, when all is said and done, is fleeting.

So we have additional contrast packed into this holiday: a call for happiness – emphasized more in ancient texts with reference to Sukkot than any other holiday – tied to a text that reads, in large part, as world-weary, pessimistic, and even nihilistic, though Kohelet also offers some redemptive possibilities. Further, the book’s very name suggests assemblage, even as it presents the deeply personal reflections of a presumably aged author – by tradition Shlomo HaMelech/שלמה המלך (King Solomon) – looking back, with profound regrets, at the vanity? meaninglessness? futility? fleeting nature? of much that he had pursued and valued (misguidedly) in his life.

Assembly. Private Contemplation.

Enduring Happiness. Fleeting Breaths.

Beginnings. Transitions. Culminations.

We have here a lot of distinct themes. What might the holiday suggest to us about how to bring them together?

Another noted line from Kohelet could moves us toward a possible answer. It – popularized in modern times by Pete Seeger and The Byrds – reads:

L’chol Zman V’Eyt L’Chol Chefetz Tachat HaShamayim

לכל זמן ועת לכל חפץ תחת השמים

This line, too, presents some challenges to translators, less in the meaning of any of the particular words than in the poetic ordering of them. I favor thinking of a comma after the first word and a semi-colon after the second, making it “For all, a time; and a season for every experience – literally “object” – under the heavens.” Turn! Turn! Turn! 

The chapter goes on to enumerate many of the experiences the author has in mind. For example:

Et LaLedet V’Et LaMoot … Et LiVkot V’Et LiSchok

עת ללדת ועת למות ... עת לבכות ועת לשחוק

A season to be born and a season to die … A season to cry and a season to laugh

Typically, we read these enumerations as distinct events, each in their separate moments, a linear flow with one following the other. But what if we think of them as simultaneous? After all, as we live our lives, we recognize that each moment could (and surely does) bring birth and death … at the same time. And, as we also know and live – notably in the year since the last celebration of Simchat Torah, on October 7, 2023 – our laughter and tears, joys and sorrows can overlap. Part of the great richness of Jewish culture – our history and liturgy and humor and traditions – comes with the interweaving of the happy and the sad. We shatter glasses under wedding canopies. We laugh and we cry. We remember slavery and celebrate freedom. We set aside a time for our happiness and, during it, read a text that considers the futility of much of it all. Simultaneously. Distinctly and together.

It does not take much manipulation of the words that open this passage of Kohelet to read them loosely as saying “at all times and seasons: we can encounter every experience under the heavens.”

Sukkot brings together themes of simultaneity, of distinctness and togetherness, as fully as any of our festivals. In its central practices, it offers both expressions of this and responses to it. Consider this: the charge before us on Sukkot is to step out of our “permanent” dwellings and instead to inhabit temporary ones, to fill these with guests, and to top our booths with natural materials that cover it nearly sufficiently, but with enough gaps to peer through and see the stars, if we take care to look. We also gather four distinct species, hold them together, note their smell or lack of smell, their potential taste or lack of taste, and we shake them to give ourselves time to experience them physically too. Sukkot directs us to take a seat, to pause, to acknowledge the impermanence of … well … pretty much everything … yet also to take note of what surrounds with spirits that can endure: the stars in the sky, the fruits and branches of trees, the smells and tastes and movements that surround us, the bonds across generations – including ancestor “guests” (“ushpizin”) we invite to “join” us in our sukkot – and the bonds among friends and within communities. In these lie joy, amidst all else that shapes our human experiences.

Wishing everyone a chag sameach/חג שמח (happy holiday) and a more peaceful year between the coming celebration of Simchat Torah and the one that will come a year from now.