Autumn fills my soul with beauty. I take delight in the crisp air, and the artist’s array of beautiful leaves. The audible crunch of leaves under my boots is an old familiar sound.
I welcome dusk at an earlier hour. The long evening stretches ahead of me like a red carpet filled with opportunity to read, talk, stream and just to be. It is a gift to finish my day under the protective embrace of a cozy homemade knitted blanket.
Autumn ushers in Sukkot, my thanksgiving. Sukkot is one of the three harvest festivals. What is a harvest? It is an ingathering of crops, and may I suggest, blessings? Sukkot is also referred to as “Zeman Simchateinu,” the time of our happiness. We rejoice and remember. We feel a deep connection to the earth as well as the moon whose fullness is a metaphoric reminder of the bounty of our harvest.
While I do not consider myself a gardener, I believe I reap the harvest of the blessing in my midst. After the Days of Awe, my heart and soul are ready to rejoice. There is a tradition that each of the species represent a part of the human body. The willow, the lips; luluv, the spine; the myrtle the eyes, and the etrog the heart. All are brought together to serve God in joy.
There is a tradition that “When God measures a human being, God puts the tape around the heart not the head. The human heart that responds to the sound of the heart of the world is the truest index of a person’s humanity.” (Sidney Greenberg Lessons for Living. ) Sukkot and Simchat Torah are the culmination of a sacred period in our lives that utilizes every aspect of our bodies to celebrate and worship God.
And perhaps one of the greatest blessings is a lesson that Sukkot teaches. A sukkah is temporary. During this festival we eat, read, study and sleep in this hut that may easily be destroyed with a gust of wind. We learn to rely on God, and may I add, our relationships, not what may be temporary or fleeting? God is permanent in our lives, if only we welcome the Divine Presence.
We turn to the author of Ecclesiastes for guidance on this Festival of booths. This book of wisdom, believed to have been written by King Solomon reminds us that life is transitory. Moreover, we are constantly confronted with contradiction. There is a strong Greek or philosophic influence in this book.
We are challenged to open our souls and look deep within ourselves and consider what makes us vulnerable. Success is never guaranteed, but we should always work to make this a better world. The author finds great satisfaction in love and friendship. Even if life is unfair, life is good. Life is worth living. We must learn to create a meaningful life in a world where we cannot always make sense of our surroundings.
The Festival of Sukkot represents a lesson in conducting a meaningful approach to life. Be grateful. Count your blessings and recognize the harvest comes in many shapes and forms. Enjoy the pleasures of life as well as love and friendship. The real freedom comes from within. You have control over your heart. Look for ways to live with purpose. Modesty. Life with balance. The author of Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) tears down but also builds up. We learn about the cycle of life.
Ecclesiastes chapter 3 teaches that there is a time for everything. Yehuda Amichai wrote that often we cry and laugh at the same time. It is not one or the other. From the poem, “A Man Doesn’t Have Time In His Life,”
A man doesn’t have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn’t have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
To arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
What history
Takes years to do…
Chag Sameach! May your harvest be one of joy and your inner moon shine deeply through the days and nights of your thanksgiving.
