From the Desk of Rabbi Jacobs

Weathering the storm on Sukkot

Last Friday, as we prepared to celebrate Shabbat Sukkot in a still very warm Tarrant County, the country’s east coast was literally swimming in a deluge. We won’t read about Noah for two weeks, but the universality of flood experiences has been included in more than a few of the records of ancient civilization. And perhaps that is one of the central points of moving our lives outside our curated homes and secure rooftops into what likely were harvest huts in ancient times.

By tradition, these are the days of seasonal change, accompanying the passage between seasons through the September equinox. For Eretz Yisra’eil and surrounding Mediterranean areas, the reversal of the length of daylight and darkness implies the end of the summer drought.

This year, news reports have regularly revealed the intensity and duration of rainfall, whether seasonal or not. And while the question of return of rain is highly significant for the festival season, a broader concept about humans and nature is underscored through the exposure that living in a Sukkah expresses.

Without a roof or floor, with fragile walls and even open sides, our harvest huts mark the frailty of human existence. We match our strengths against the forces that are nature. Conceptually that is our experience of the created world outlined in the opening chapter of Genesis and restated in the second chapter. Part of that relationship includes the naming of things that the first human was charged with. That step leads to our responsibility for the state of the world.

The first humans were placed in the Garden of Eden, which remains the definition of paradise. That experience was conditional, excellent as long as the fruit of one tree was not eaten. That is no easy fit for human inventiveness, or curiosity, or being ornery. Yet the expulsion from that paradise increased rather than decreased human responsibility.

Some view the Eden story as fiction, but it contains rich religious truths, as does the entire story of creation. We want to know where we came from, and what our forebears experienced. Sukkot gives us some of those answers. Our lives are intertwined with the Natural World in which we are embedded. And like other creatures, our place in the order of things includes the knowledge that we are only present temporarily.

Erecting a sukkah is a labor that is commanded. Spending time in it is the invitation to imitate Eden in living and philosophy. The term of our stay in the festival mode is known. It is a small segment of a life. Embracing that part of living literally moves us from ease and comfort to closer contact with our limits.

The harvest for the season might be complete, but the harvest of years and lives depends upon engagement of mind, heart and spirit.

Chag samei’ach, mo’adim l’simchah.