Ever since I left home to serve two years of “National Service” in Tzfat and Jerusalem, and then off to university, I’ve been paying rent, every month of my life. A lot of rent, and thank God, many months.
It was about 16 years ago when I realized that there is one week a year that I live rent free. This realization came to me as I was reciting birkat ha-mazon the first night of Sukkot in MY sukkah. I found myself come to a halt at a blessing that I say habitually, but all of a sudden needed to be modified. Normally I say, “May the Compassionate One, bless my father and mother” and then depending on who’s table I’m sitting at I will add, “and the Ba’al/at Ha-bayit ha-zeh” (my host/ess). (I actually even say this blessing in such a form when I dine alone in my home – my apartment belongs to the person I pay rent to, so I bless my landlady every time I say birkat ha-mazon). But that night, sitting in my own sukkah, I realized that this temporary house-of-dwelling was the one home that was actually mine. It was here that I merited being a “home owner.” One week, once a year.
I became a “home owner” of a home that I put up with my own two hands, who’s entire essence is temporary, one which has a roof required to shield the glare of the sun while enabling the moon and stars to enter as welcome guests.
Our sages teach a controversy regarding the mitzvah of sitting in the Sukkah: Do we dwell in the sukkah for 7 days (complete with beds, tables, wall hangings and rugs) to evoke a memory of dwelling in a physical sukkah for 40 years as we crossed the desert on the way to Israel; or is it in the merit of the Cloud-of-Glory that led us on that journey?
I ponder this controversy every year, asking myself what is it that I need as I exit the security of the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe, starting with Rosh Ha-Shanah and concluding with Yom Kippur. I’m aware that the word “security” is not one often used in regard to this time of year, but if you look at it with this lens then you too will see. We are told when to show up at services, we are given books with ample words to recite all or in part, we are guided how to feel and even what questions (and to whom) we should be asking. The walls of the synagogue protect us, the presence of the congregation envelopes us.
As I exit the synagogue after that last blast of the Shofar is sounded, I hold on with gratitude to the tradition of immediately hammering in the first nail of the first wall of the sukkah – still being told what to do…
But while I raise my hammer, I return to our rabbinic controversy and ask myself – what is it that I need more? While embarking on the journey of this coming year, so much of it unknown, so much of it open to the grace of God and the people with whom I share God’s world, do I need to know that at the end of the day I have a place to lay my head (the sukkah of the desert), or do I need the assurance that every step of the way I will be guided (the Cloud-of-Glory)?
This past summer two of our Ziegler rabbinical seniors – Ezra and Shlomo – flew to Siberia to teach for a week. I was very uneasy about this. Growing up in Israel of the 1970’ and 80’s I wrote monthly letters to Natan Sharansky and kept Ida Nudel close to my heart. Siberia was not a place where Jews flew voluntarily! The students promised me they had a two-way ticket. They promised me they would return, but like a worrying parent I made Ezra promise me that he would email me when they got there, and that upon returning to American soil he would call so I could start breathing again. Prior to the trip Shlomo asked me what would I teach were I going? If I could choose one text, what would it be?
I told him that I did not know who I would be were I to be in Siberia and I did not know who the people I would be learning with would be. I did not know what I would need to say to them, nor what it was that they would need to hear at that moment.
“There is one thing I do know,” I said to him, “I wouldn’t leave Siberia without them knowing that no matter what happens in their life, God loves them and they are not alone. They are never alone”.
In Tehillim (Psalm) 23 we say, “Even if I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for You are with me”. This isn’t a promise of a life spared of pain and sorrow; this isn’t a commitment on God’s part that the year to come will bring with it only what appears to be blessings and gifts. It is a promise from the One-and-Only that no matter where our lives take us, no matter what we are demanded to endure on this journey, we are never alone.
I embrace this promise as a means to reconcile our rabbinic quandary – literal sukkah? Cloud-of-Glory? My reconciliation is not one of “either/or” but rather, “elu ve-elu, both are the words of the living God”. Our sukkah is here to remind us as we venture into our new year, that at the end of the day, indeed there will be a safe (temporary though it may be) space to rest our head. The sukkah is also here to imprint within us the recognition that every step we take this year is not done alone. The Cloud-of-Glory is hovering over our head – shielding us from the scorch of sun, enabling us the vision of the stars.
May we merit to share the Sukkat Shalom, the Sukkah of Peace, with each other. May we merit inviting into our sukkah those walking the streets, having forgotten the promise the sukkah extends to all.
Shabbat shalom and Chag sameach.