![]() ![]() These tell the unique story of Jewish identity and history: the exodus ( Pesach), the revelation at Mount Sinai ( Shavuot), and the journey through the wilderness ( Sukkot). The first is the cycle of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot. Although all the festivals are listed together, they in fact represent two quite different cycles. It is almost as if Sukkot were two festivals, not one. It is the festival of a people like no other, whose only protection was its faith in the sheltering wings of the Divine presence. Far from being universalist, Sukkot is intensely particularistic. ![]() No other nation was born not in its land, but in the desert. No other nation could see its home not as a castle, a fortress or a triumphal arch, but as a fragile tabernacle. The sukkah is defined as a “temporary dwelling ( dirat arai).” It is the most powerful symbol of Jewish history. When we sit in the sukkah, we recall Jewish history – not just the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, but also the entire experience of exile. Sukkot is about the universal need for rain.Īt the same time, however, it is the most particularist of festivals. Following the cues in Zechariah, they said that “on the festival, the world is judged in the matter of rain” ( Mishnah, Rosh Hashanah 1:2). The sages interpreted the fact that seventy bulls were sacrificed in the course of the festival (Numbers 29:12-34) to refer to the seventy nations (the traditional number of civilizations). If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain” (Zechariah 14:9, 16-17). If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain. On that day the Lord will be one, and His name the only name … Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. The prophet Zechariah foresees the day when it will be celebrated by all humanity: “The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On the one hand, Sukkot is the most universalistic of all festivals. If it rains on Sukkot, we are exempt from the command (for as long as the rain lasts, and providing it is sufficiently strong to spoil food on the table). By contrast, the command to live for seven days in booths, with only leaves for a roof, presupposes the absence of rain. They were, says Maimonides ( Guide for the Perplexed, III: 43), the most readily available products of the land of Israel, reminders of the fertility of the land. The four kinds and the rituals associated with them are about rain. Not only are the four kinds and the tabernacle different in character they are even seemingly opposed to one another. No other festival has this dual symbolism. Wandering willows video portable#It is an annual reminder of portable homes in which the Israelites lived during their journey through the wilderness. This is the command to leave our house and live in the temporary dwelling that gives Sukkot its name: the festival of Tabernacles, or booths, or huts. I am the Lord your G-d” (Leviticus 23:42-43). ![]() All native-born Israelites are to live in booths, so your descendants will know that I made the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. The second command is quite different: “ Live in booths for seven days. ![]() This is a reference to the arba minim (four kinds) – palm branch, citron, myrtle and willow leaves – taken and waved on Sukkot. The first: “ Beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days … On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and willows of the brook, and rejoice before the Lord your G-d for seven days” (Leviticus 23:39-40). Uniquely, Sukkot is associated with two mitzvot, not one. There is a second strange feature that appears in this reading. Is this significant? If so, how? (It was this double reference that gave Sukkot its alternative name in Jewish tradition: z’man simchateinu, the season of our joy.) In the context of Pesach, it makes no reference to joy in that of Shavuot, it speaks of it once in Sukkot, as we see from the above quotation, it speaks of it twice. Speaking of the three pilgrimage festivals – Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot – Deuteronomy speaks of “joy.” But it does not do so equally. ![]()
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