What are the lessons of Sukkot?
Table for Five: Sukkot Edition
In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
Edited by Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
And you shall take for yourselves on the first day, the fruit of the hadar tree, date palm fronds, a branch of a braided tree, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for a seven day period.
– Lev. 23:40 (from Torah reading on first day of Sukkot)
Rabbi Elazar Bergman, Author of the forthcoming “The Daven Better Handbook”
Our Sages point out that these four species of tree parallel four broad types of Jew. The hadar tree produces a deliciously scented fruit. These would be people well-versed in Torah who do good works. Dates are fruit sans scent. These are people who know mucho Torah, but are somewhat short on good works. The braided myrtle smells wonderful, but gives no fruit. These folks do mitzvahs and chessed for individuals and the community. However, they’re not a primary source of Torah information. Willows have nothing for the tongue or nose. They seeming to bring nothing to the table.
Lesson number one: to rejoice before HaShem, we have to unite with all our fellow Jews. If we don’t unite voluntarily, Hamans, Hitlers, Hamas and Hezbelloh will goad us to do so.
What do you do with these four united denizens of the arboretum when you’ve taken them? You wave them to the Four Winds, and up and down. This is your acknowledgement of HaShem’s control over all natural phenomena. Simultaneously, it is thanks for the gifts He sends you from the four corners of the world, and for rain from above and dew from below.
Lesson number two: all that occurs is Divinely orchestrated harmony. (Since this is far from obvious, we need the reminder. That this is so needs more words than those allotted for this article.)
Lesson number three: a mitzvah impacts and teaches lessons on different planes, simultaneously.
Gilla Nissan, Teacher of Jewish Mysticism, author of Meditations with the Hebrew Letters- A Guide for the Modern Seeker
Shaking the Four Kinds in the Sukkah
What a lovely Biblical ritual to follow, especially in this technological era. One of my sweetest childhood memories is being in my grandparents’ Sukkah, covered with eucalyptus branches, taking in the divine aroma of a Sukkaht-Shalom. Torah text is very close to the earth and her fruits. A large part of the teaching is very ritualistic, very shamanic, very sensual. The Hebrew word adama/soil is everywhere witnessing our b’rit with God. Judaism became more mental after we were expelled and disconnected from our land, and stayed pretty barren until we were brought back to “work” her. She longed for our consciousness. We longed for what was promised to us. It’s a love story.
Thus, rabbinical Judaism is a fraction. Our never-ending 3500-year-old story we call Judaism is not a religion. The Hebrew word dat / religion doesn’t appear in Torah. The correct word, da’at / to know, does appear often and means higher knowledge. That is what Moses delivered or channeled and that is what Judaism is all about: A story with 70 faces revealed or hidden as needed, while we travel in this world fulfilling the mission of our soul. On Sukkot we shake the Four Kinds to all directions to create a protection from any negative forces, and to allow the new light of the new year to descend upon us.
Rabbi Eva Robbins, Co-Rabbi, Nvay Shalom & Faculty, AJRCA
It is just a few days since we left the most intense Holy Day, Yom Kippur, having lived in the land of our souls, shrouded in the depth of the most painful emotions such as guilt and shame, remorse and repentance, pleading for forgiveness and crying for compassion. The climactic moment of Neilah, walking through the gates leaving 40 days of sustained self-examination, we now enter the only holiday that commands us to be joyous, “You shall rejoice before Adonai, your Gd.” Yom Simchateynu, also known as Sukkot literally meaning booths, we relive our ancestors travels in the desert, residing in temporary dwellings while harvesting their produce, the gift of sustenance. Sukkot, the original Thanksgiving Holiday which inspired the pilgrims to create our own most satisfying holiday in America, surrounding a splendid table of delicious food amidst friends and family, calls on completely different emotions, happiness and gratitude, going from our inner landscape to the outdoors, to Gd’s glorious Creation, sitting beneath sun, moon and stars surrounded by temporary walls, a fragile home for seven days reminding us that materiality is ephemeral and faith and hope reside within our sacred relationship with the Holy One. We take these four symbols, also Kabbalistic symbols of our body (spine, heart, eyes and mouth), hold them and shake them in six directions, aligning our physical and spiritual being with Creation while blessing Gd who took us out of Egypt so we could be partners in sustaining, honoring and protecting our most precious world.
Rabbi Rebecca Schatz, Associate Rabbi, Temple Beth Am
Driving down Pico Blvd in early September, I passed a store that had a sukkah. Before I could notice the sign that they were selling sukkot, I felt my body, and heart, have an anxious and visceral reaction. Sukkot this year, both the holiday and the fragile home, will be difficult for me. When traveling to Israel in November of 2023, the kibbutzim that we visited were still set up with sukkot. Homes destroyed, lives destroyed, sukkot standing strong. And isn’t that the opposite of what a sukkah should do? Shouldn’t it be so fragile that the elements could take it down? Yes, but these were human “elements.”
Sukkot, in Kibbutz Kfar Azza, stood and some had lulavim and etrogim on their tables. This verse is haunting this year: We should take these pieces of natural earth into our hands and rejoice. To take these minim, species, we must remove them from their life source. No longer receiving water or nutrients, we have all experienced the short life of a lulav and etrog. And yet, the verse teaches us to recognize life in these withering branches and use them as symbols of our joy.
So maybe sukkot is more important this year. We will dwell in brittle homes, hold onto quickly drying and dying species and command ourselves in joy. Recognizing life’s ability to shift, to end, to wither. May this year be one where we focus and celebrate the fragility of life while grasping onto that which brings us joy now.
Rabbi Chaim Tureff, Rav Beit Sefer at Pressman Academy and author of “Recovery in the Torah”
I knew someone that took a hammer and hit themselves in the leg because they were angry about something completely unrelated. This was a tell-tale sign of mental illness and someone who needed help. Unfortunately, they refused to get the help they needed and their wife and family have suffered because of it. This pasuk about Sukkot brings me right to this incident and the lack of achdut (unity) that we have experienced over the millennia as the Jewish people. The midrash in Vayikra Rabbah explains this pasuk as an allusion about different types of Jews. The etrog to a Jew with Torah and good deeds, the date palm as a Jew who has Torah but no good deeds, the myrtle to a Jew with good deeds but no Torah and finally, the willows as a Jew without good deeds or Torah. And yet, God wants us to bring them all together to shake as each has a place and needs one another. The Jewish people have continued to resist the consistent achdut that is needed to bring Shalom. The Kotzker Rebbe said, “achdut [brotherhood] prevents Jewish communal tragedy and disaster; not the other way around.” Our lack of unity is similar to the person who hits themself when they are frustrated. The body is connected, and hurting one part ultimately injures the entire body. May we go back to the unity at Sinai where we were, K’eash Echad BiLev Echad (like one person with one heart).
With thanks to Rabbi Elazar Bergman, Gilla Nissan, Rabbi Eva Robbins, Rabbi Rebecca Schatz and Rabbi Chaim Tureff
Image: “Sukkot in the Synagogue” by Leopold Pilichowski, 1895
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