Today is Chol Hamoed, the not quite holiday, not quite weekday time of Sukkot. We are still celebrating, but we might be back to work. We still shake our lulav, still eat outside, but we might not put on our Tefillin (at least if we are Sephardic). It is a confusing place to be, so much so that there is a brief volume of Talmud entirely devoted to it!
For rabbis (and every day Jews), this time of year is a wee bit hectic. We are constantly searching for guests to welcome to our meals, preparing food, going to synagogue, and catching up on the work that sustains us the other days of the week. We are regularly pausing to consider our place in the world, but sometimes all that existential wondering can be exhausting!
From Torah Daily (Facebook): Sitting in the Sukkah with flimsy walls and
its fragile roof, through which we see the stars shine, we better
appreciate everything we have and we thank you Hashem. What we have is
not what we are, but rather our gratitude, our humility and our
sensibility. That is what reveals our true self." (Rabbi Marshall T.
Meyer)
On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we wonder about our mortality and our morals. On Sukkot and Simchat Torah, we are told that we have to move, we have to dance, we have to celebrate. We take MORE time off from work, eat our meals and if it doesn't rain too much, sleep outside. We shake the lulav and etrog and process around the synagogue, singing psalms from Hallel and generally having a good time. On Hoshanah Rabbah, we beat the last vestiges of our sins away with willow branches, making a big mess, remember those we have lost with Yizkor on Shmini Atzeret (in the diaspora) and then finally celebrate again with Simchat Torah.
My colleague and friend, Rabbi Dan Dorsch, wrote in Ha'aretz this week:
that the Medizbozer Rebbe understand the "Tishrei holiday extravangaza as a call to Jews to engage in Judiasm with their whole selves. Rosh Hashanah, he beleived, with its focus on memory, remains an opportunity for us each year to use our brains to reflect, while Yom Kippur he taught, was an opprtunity, for us to open up our hearts to God and others. he believed that Sukkot, with its building projects and the grasping of the Lulav and Etrog, speaks to the way that our hands help us to connect to God and the world around us. And he also felt that on Simchat Torah it was our feet, through dancing and parading around synagogues with the Torah, that allowed us to worship God with our entire being."
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/rabbis-round-table/there-s-no-substitute-for-physical-ritual-on-the-jewish-high-holy-days.premium-1.467955
Another interesting article about Sukkot: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/rabbis-round-table/the-theological-challenges-of-sukkot-for-diaspora-jews.premium-1.467577
Frankly, all this celebrating can be exhausting. In that vein, a Brandeis and JTS classmate of mine, Rabbi Rachel Silverman, as seen in the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia for her "Real Men Marry Rabbis" shirts, has also made "Rabbis Heart Heshvan" shirts. Heshvan is the Jewish month after Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah which has absolutely no Jewish holidays in it (other than Shabbat). In a whimsical way, she captures the joy of normalcy, of living our daily lives.
http://www.rabbirachelsilverman.com/t-shirts.html
http://realmenmarryrabbis.spreadshirt.com/
If you are just a bit overwhelmed, that's ok! I think we are supposed to be. Gd is overwhelming. Life can be overwhelming. This time reminds us that our lives are full. We have much going on. We have to grab the threads we can reach, sew them together, and keep creating the quilt that is our lives!
