Dear Friends,
Yom Kippur is barely behind us, and Sukkot is about to begin. I’m finding it really interesting to think about the relationship between the two of them. I mean, if Yom Kippur is the most important Jewish holiday (it’s certainly up there), and it’s the time when we’re the most spiritually stirred up and ready for… something, it’s cool to think about what is meant to come next.
Of all the things the Torah could have given us to come right after Yom Kippur (organized space for implementing resolutions? Something about balance and virtue and careful decision-making?) we get Sukkot, and we are supposed to:
It’s not what you’d expect, right, if you were coming into this without any prior Jewish knowledge? It’s a pretty significant switching of gears. We’re going from solemnity to celebration; from plain white outfits to fruit and stuff hanging everywhere; from earnest commitments and responsibility-taking to throwing up our hands in the air a bit and acknowledging the fact that everything is fleeting and it’s all just a bit ridiculous.
If you do yoga, there’s a concept of counterposes – stretches that are important to do after a different kind of stretch, to get your body balanced in a certain way. If you do a backbend, you should follow it with a forward fold. If you twist to one side, you should twist to the other. Sukkot is the ultimate counterpose for Yom Kippur, and we need it to restore balance. We are so filled up right now with gravity and with purpose. That is incredibly important and beautiful and I’m honestly so proud of us. Now, we need Sukkot. We need the zip ties and the paper chains, the pumpkin soup and the mulled cider, the “everything is meaningless” (Kohelet 1:2) and the “might as well give it what we’ve got, because it’s not following us to the grave where we’re headed” (ibid 9:10), read aloud with friends over a glass of wine and surrounded by a fresh autumn breeze.
Then, we put it all together. We’re not balancing back to pre-Yom Kippur – we’re taking in the best of both and bringing it all into the future. Let’s hang out in the sukkah and talk about how wild it all is.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Hannah