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Building ShelterOctober 2003From the Desk of Rabbi FreelundIt's a fact: more and more American Jews are building sukkot every year. The holiday that was once celebrated as simply a "Jewish Thanksgiving" has gained a new relevancy for many of us in America. Why should this be? I think that the sukkah has appeal because it is a real, physical object with which we can interact. While as Jews, we emphasize the incorporeality of God, the idea can be hard to hold on to. There have been many times in history and even in the present when Jews longed for some tangible sign of God's presence, some physical component that would assure and justify our belief in an invisible God. We have other taken steps to give ourselves physical reminders of God's presence in our lives. Most notable would be the mezuzah. When you think about it, it is a rather strange notion to "write these words upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Who knows whether or not this was intended literally? Our tradition seized upon this idea as a central practice of the Jewish home, right from the very beginning. It provided a real object, something we could see and touch, to remind us of our connection to God. Hanging a mezuzah is still one of the most widely practiced customs by Jews. I think the return to the sukkah is for many of the same reasons that the mezuzah is so important to us. We long for something that we can put our hands on. After thousands of years in a relationship with a God that we can't see, we still need a reminder of the abiding presence. Like the mezuzah, the structure of the sukkah is something that we can see and touch. The sukkah, however, is something more than a simple tool to stimulate the memory. It also helps us to understand our position in the world. During the holiday of Sukkot, the Talmud tells us that we are supposed to make our home a temporary dwelling and our sukkah a permanent one. As we eat, welcome guests, study, and perhaps even sleep beneath it (a real possibility in Tucson!), we should ponder what it means to be safe and secure in our homes. The sukkah reminds us that the shelter we know in our year-round homes is illusory. That which we build can be easily destroyed, and there is nothing built by human hands that is eternal or 100% reliable. When we dwell in the sukkah, its roughly built walls and ceiling of branches above us, we are forced to consider what the ultimate source of our shelter really is. The uncertainties that compose our lives come into stark relief; a strong wind or a sudden storm has the potential to upset our day-to-day lives. The real source of our shelter is the power that enables us to endure the storm, and the myriad of other potentially harmful events that arise in life. The walls of the sukkah make us see just how precarious our lives really are and just who we depend on, every day. God, spread over us the sukkah of your peace and shelter. Chag Sameach, Rabbi David Freelund |
