Sukkot 5774

By Rabbi Daniel A. Kripper

The Sukkah – symbol of peace and unity

We read in Deuteronomy, the fifth and last book of the Torah:

And Moses instructed them as follows: Every seventh year, the year set for remission, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Teaching aloud in the presence of all Israel.  Gather the people — men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities — that they may hear and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Teaching.  (Deut. 31: 10-12).

In these words, the last shared by Moses with the children of Israel just before he was told that he is about to die, we learn that Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, often known for the fruits and harvesting, is a time for reading our holy Torah.  The entire people, united, had to listen to the words of the Torah during this festival.  With no mechitza (the partition or curtain that separates men and women), God orders everyone to listen.  Even the stranger is invited to join the great assembly.

In the Torah, Sukkot is not just a harvest festival.  It is the feast during which King Solomon inaugurated the Temple with the entire people.  “So Solomon observed the festival at that time for seven days, and all Israel with him” (2 Chronicles 7:8-10, also see 1 Kings 8:1-5).

Ezra brought the Torah before the congregation in Jerusalem, … made up of men and women and all who were able to understand…  They found written in the Law, which the Lord had commanded through Moses, that the Israelites were to live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month and that they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem: “Go out into the hill country and bring back branches from olive and wild olive trees, and from myrtles, palms and shade trees, to make temporary shelters” - as it is written.  (Nehemiah 8:2, 14-15)

The passage from the Book of Nehemiah tells us that the keeping of Sukkot had not occurred since Joshua’s times.  As the people read the Torah, they learned that they should build booths for the Sukkot festival.

And the most meaningful part about Sukkot appears in Zechariah 14:16-19, where he refers to his vision of all nations together sharing a Sukkah one day, at the end of time.  This is the goal, according to the Torah: an ultimate union, not just with our original brothers and sisters but with all humanity.

Observance and exile, return and renewal, change and evolution, are the cornerstones of Jewish survival.  Throughout history, we have not lingered on any period of time, perception, or ideology.  We continue as all the other species that biologically survive on this planet, through our adaptation.  The change has enabled us to move from Solomon’s Temple to Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s marketplace.  Our survival has never been based on prohibitions or Halakhic rigidities, or in the granting of our traditions to a single group or ideology.  Today’s Chassidim were yesterday’s persecuted minority.

 The Torah is clear: integration is the goal.  Our sukkah is open to all those who come and embrace it.  We welcome all members of the community and all those who in good faith want to be a part of our tabernacle.  And we receive with open arms all who want to study Torah; our sukkah is a tabernacle of Torah for all.  It is the integration model for every tabernacle or dwelling, devoted to preserve our religious and spiritual values.

There is room for all of us in the sukkah of the Divine Presence.  We are all welcome to embrace Moses’ Torah and to celebrate the Lord’s festivities.  Sukkot is a symbol of the world to come, where all who pursue a path of real spirituality will be welcome within the tabernacle of peace.  As every Shabbat, we pray that a sukkat shalom, a “tabernacle of peace”, spreads over us, over Jerusalem, and over our unsettled world.  Amen.

Rabbi Daniel A. Kripper

Aruba