RS Blog & News

I hope you all had a meaningful Yom Kippur. We're barely past Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and here we are in the midst of another holiday, Sukkot. For this Shabbat, we have a special Sukkot Torah reading.

This special reading begins with Moshé asking God to live among the people, so that they will know that God thinks of them in a positive way (the Torah's way of putting this is "so that we will know we have found favor in your eyes.") God agrees - though God says no one will see God's face - and tells Moshé to carve two stone tablets upon which God can inscribe the words that were inscribed on the first set of tablets.

- Do you remember what was going on here?

- Why does there need to be a second set of stone tablets? What happened to the first set?

- Why might Moshé and the people be wondering if God still thinks of them favorably?

- What was God inscribing on these stone tablets?

- What does it mean for God to live among the people? Do you recall what signified God's presence while our ancestors wandered in the desert? Is there anything that signifies God's presence nowadays?

In case you don't recall the story: The stone tablets are where God inscribed the 10 Commandments. The first set was destroyed by Moshé when he came down from Mount Sinai, carrying the tablets, only to discover that the people had made a golden sculpture of a calf and were worshiping it. That explains the need for a second set of stone tablets, and why everyone might be more than a little concerned that God wasn't feeling too good about them. As God meets Moshé on Mount Sinai once again, God says that God is compassionate, forgiving, gracious, abundant in love and truth, slow to anger, quick to forgive, and merciful in other ways. These words have become a prayer - The 13 Attributes Of God's Mercy - that we recite on the High Holy Days and other holidays when we read the Torah (though not on Shabbat). Not much later in the Torah, God instructs the people to build a portable tabernacle - a place for worship and sacrifices - to take with them in their travels, as a place where God's presence can be especially felt. 

Modern synagogues serve this purpose today - a place for us to assemble, pray, and study the Torah and our history. Synagogues are not the only places we remember our history, the mitzvot, and the stories of the Torah.

- Can you think of other places or things that remind us of the teachings of God and the Torah, and of our Judaism?

- Are there places or times in your life where you feel especially Jewish, or closer to God or the Torah, or somehow more spiritual?

The special reading ends (no surprise here!) with the commandment to observe three specific holidays, also referred to in Judaism as the three pilgrimage festivals as these were holidays when, in ancient times, people made a pilgrimage (traveled) to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. As it lists these three holidays, today's reading specifies the sacrifices that should be brought, and a reminder not to cook a kid in its mother's milk (from which we get the separation of meat and dairy that is part of the laws of Kashrut.)

- So: What are the three pilgrimage holidays?

If you said Sukkot, Pesach (Passover), and Shavuot, you're correct!

- What other Jewish holidays can you think of?

- Which ones are mentioned in the Torah?

- Why aren't they all mentioned in the Torah?

- What's your favorite, and why?

In addition to Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot, the other holidays mentioned in the Torah are Shabbat (which you may not think of as a holiday since it comes every week, not once a year), Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Shemini Atzeret (the day after Sukkot). Not mentioned in the Torah are Chanukah, Purim, Tu B'Shevat, Lag B'Omer, and many others - because the events or traditions that those holidays commemorate occurred after the Torah was written down.

Elsewhere in the Torah, we are told that on the holiday of Sukkot, we should live in "booths" (Sukkot) for a week. This commemorates the impermanence of how we lived when we traveled through the desert on the way from Egypt to Canaan. The Torah also specifies what have become the lulav (a palm front - surrounded by willow and myrtle branches), and the etrog (the citron). Let's talk about this ritual of building, eating in, maybe even sleeping in a Sukkah. 

- What do you think the Sukkah is supposed to remind us of or tell us?

- What feelings might the Sukkah be intended to provoke in us?

- How is your home different from a Sukkah? What would you give up if you had to live in a Sukkah all the time?

Holidays give us a chance to celebrate in special ways, to remember our history, to look forward to the future, and to think about how different our lives would be without events and people to commemorate. Onward to Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah!

Shabbat shalom,

Dan