Sukkot
In the backyards of many of our homes, we decorate each year a sukkah/booth with fruits of the field. We gather within them to both thank God for the harvest, and ask God for winter rain for next year’s crops. And though we build the sukkah only during this one week of the year, we in fact use the word sukkah in every evening service, when in the Hashkevanu prayer we read or sing Ufros alenu sukkat sh’lomekha -- “Spread over us Your sukkah of shalom.” Though there is certainly a lovely alliterative effect in asking for “sukkat sh’lomecha, your sukka of shalom,” it doesn't make for much of a logical request! Since a sukkah is a temporary booth, erected only at this festival and never meant to last more than a week, why would we ask God for a “sukkah of shalom?” Wouldn't we rather have the protection of a more permanent house or better yet, a palace of peace, a fortress of peace!?
During the Festival of Sukkot, we are purposefully reminded that the sukkah is the most unprotective of shelters. It is vulnerable in time, where it lasts for only one week, and it’s vulnerable in space, where its roof must be not only leafy but leaky, letting in both starlight, and gusts of wind and rain. Our tradition says that the tentative and exposed character of the sukkah suggests that all of us are in reality vulnerable, living in a world that can quickly change from secure to precarious. We are thankful for all of God’s blessings, but we know that nothing in Life or Nature is a sure thing. So, Sukkot comes each year to teach us that God needs us as much as we need God. Nature predictably provides us with grain from the field, but it becomes our job to transform it into bread. And since Nature also unpredictably brings drought or flood, we must work to conserve and preserve whatever we are able to bring in.
Likewise, in our Hashkevanu prayer, when we ask God to shelter us beneath a sukkah of peace we recognize the reality of our tentative safety and security. We so often think or believe that we can live in peace by protecting ourselves within steel and concrete buildings, behind barriers and fences and walls. Americans have always felt protected, even invulnerable-- the oceans safeguard us, our wealth and our military shield us-- but we've been awakened to a new reality. And asking God to shelter us beneath a “sukkah of peace” likewise reminds us that in truth we are always vulnerable. We all live in a sukkah. Even the wide oceans, the mightiest buildings and the most powerful weapons do not shield us from the cunning of evil. And even beyond the possibility of and propensity for human destruction, because the forces of Nature may suddenly and quickly and devastatingly turn our lives upside down, we've learned that we’re never very far from calamity or misfortune. The Hashkevanu prayer of our evening worship has always tried to impress upon us the tenuous and tentative hold we have on security and well-being, and we have come to appreciate how really true that message is.
Because we all live in a sukkah, we must, each and every day, make every possible effort to secure the sukkah-shelter of our home and family, our community and our faith, secure them as places of peace and security, of harmony and wholeness. All of us live in a world of mutual vulnerability, a world where we, each of us, must feel responsible for all of us, where the community we build is ultimately our only protection. All the world is a sukkah: vulnerable, exposed and open. We need each other, now more than ever.
In the backyards of many of our homes, we decorate each year a sukkah/booth with fruits of the field. We gather within them to both thank God for the harvest, and ask God for winter rain for next year’s crops. And though we build the sukkah only during this one week of the year, we in fact use the word sukkah in every evening service, when in the Hashkevanu prayer we read or sing Ufros alenu sukkat sh’lomekha -- “Spread over us Your sukkah of shalom.” Though there is certainly a lovely alliterative effect in asking for “sukkat sh’lomecha, your sukka of shalom,” it doesn't make for much of a logical request! Since a sukkah is a temporary booth, erected only at this festival and never meant to last more than a week, why would we ask God for a “sukkah of shalom?” Wouldn't we rather have the protection of a more permanent house or better yet, a palace of peace, a fortress of peace!?
During the Festival of Sukkot, we are purposefully reminded that the sukkah is the most unprotective of shelters. It is vulnerable in time, where it lasts for only one week, and it’s vulnerable in space, where its roof must be not only leafy but leaky, letting in both starlight, and gusts of wind and rain. Our tradition says that the tentative and exposed character of the sukkah suggests that all of us are in reality vulnerable, living in a world that can quickly change from secure to precarious. We are thankful for all of God’s blessings, but we know that nothing in Life or Nature is a sure thing. So, Sukkot comes each year to teach us that God needs us as much as we need God. Nature predictably provides us with grain from the field, but it becomes our job to transform it into bread. And since Nature also unpredictably brings drought or flood, we must work to conserve and preserve whatever we are able to bring in.
Likewise, in our Hashkevanu prayer, when we ask God to shelter us beneath a sukkah of peace we recognize the reality of our tentative safety and security. We so often think or believe that we can live in peace by protecting ourselves within steel and concrete buildings, behind barriers and fences and walls. Americans have always felt protected, even invulnerable-- the oceans safeguard us, our wealth and our military shield us-- but we've been awakened to a new reality. And asking God to shelter us beneath a “sukkah of peace” likewise reminds us that in truth we are always vulnerable. We all live in a sukkah. Even the wide oceans, the mightiest buildings and the most powerful weapons do not shield us from the cunning of evil. And even beyond the possibility of and propensity for human destruction, because the forces of Nature may suddenly and quickly and devastatingly turn our lives upside down, we've learned that we’re never very far from calamity or misfortune. The Hashkevanu prayer of our evening worship has always tried to impress upon us the tenuous and tentative hold we have on security and well-being, and we have come to appreciate how really true that message is.
Because we all live in a sukkah, we must, each and every day, make every possible effort to secure the sukkah-shelter of our home and family, our community and our faith, secure them as places of peace and security, of harmony and wholeness. All of us live in a world of mutual vulnerability, a world where we, each of us, must feel responsible for all of us, where the community we build is ultimately our only protection. All the world is a sukkah: vulnerable, exposed and open. We need each other, now more than ever.