Author: Temple Sinai

The Soulful Architecture of the Sukkah

“The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own, we have no soul of our own civilization.”— Frank Lloyd Wright

I don’t know if Frank Lloyd Wright ever sat for a meal in a sukkah. If I could, I’d invite him along with the ushpizin*, just to see what he’d say about the architecture of the sukkah structure and how it reflects on the soul of Jewish civilization.

Wright would immediately notice that a sukkah is very modest, especially compared to the phenomenon of suburban McMansions and particularly compared to the real mansions on the Neck in Marblehead or out over the “cliff walk” in Newport, RI! The sukkah is no skyscraper either, usually reaching just over our heads. (The absolute maximum is about 30 feet high.) According to Israel Meyer Kagan (the “Hefetz Haim”, a great nineteenth and early 20th century halachic scholar) any sukkah built too high would require strong walls to support it. The makeshift walls of the low-lying sukkah, however, remind us that the sukkah is meant to be an impermanent structure. It should withstand a blustery wind, but not a major storm.

Shabbat shalom for this “Shabbat Shuva”!

One of the most intriguing – and hopeful – aspects of the High Holiday season is the designation of Rosh HaShana as “Hayom Harat Olam”, the day on which the world was called into being, the day on which it was conceived. Given the heavier themes of the holidays to which we are more accustomed, this aspect of the holiday strikes a welcome, positive note: The fact that the universe exists at all is a cause for wonder, for appreciation, for acknowledgment, and for responsibility.

The idea of ‘Hayom Harat Olam’ extends a sense of promise and potential that can strongly motivate us to start the New Year on some positive notes. The Rosh HaShana holiday we celebrated earlier this week, then, was the day that recalls Creation, a day in which there was light instead of an overwhelming darkness, a day to ‘turn over a new leaf’, to make a fresh start, to turn the clock back, to begin again.

Likewise, this positive theme can be detected in the notion of Shabbat Shuva, the Sabbath that falls between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. This special Sabbath gets its name from the first line of the Haftarah that the Rabbis instituted for the week: “Shuva Yisrael–Return O Israel unto the Lord thy God.” (Hosea 14:2) While each week Shabbat is, among other things, a celebration of the crowning of Creation, Shabbat Shuva directly parallels the primordial first Shabbat in its arrival on the heels of Rosh Hashana, the world’s ‘birthday.’

This is our last Shabbat of the year, just before Rosh haShana. 

Our weekly Torah portion, Nitzavim, is a great help in preparing us for the holidays to come.

In fact, the Reform and Reconstructionist High Holiday prayerbooks include a section of this week’s Torah portion as an alternative Torah reading for Yom Kippur Day. Heeding its message is essential for fulfilling our spiritual task at this season. This portion stands as both an invitation to us to participate in these holidays with all our beings, and it underscores the value of inclusivity as a crucially Jewish value. 

“You stand this day, all of you, before Adonai your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer—to enter into the covenant of Adonai your God, which Adonai your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; to the end that Adonai may establish you this day as Adonai’s people and be your God, as Adonai promised you and as Adonai swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before Adonai our God and with those who are not with us here this day.”

This is a very important time of year for Jewish communities everywhere, and for our community as well. Many of you have already renewed your Temple Sinai membership for the new year. Some of you are becoming members again after a hiatus from the synagogue. And we are welcoming a few new members to our community as well.

Welcome and welcome back to you all!

Unlike the expression for greeting someone in English – “welcome” – to which the new arrival responds, “thank you”, the expression in Hebrew is quite different. It implies a sense of mutuality.

You say “bruchim habaim” to the newcomers: “blessed are they that arrive.” The newcomer responds with “bruchim hanimtzaim” which means “blessed be those who are present.”

Thus, a ‘welcome’ becomes a blessing that extends to everyone.

The bruchim habaim greeting is also powerfully optimistic:

Blessed are habaim – whomever or whatever is coming our way. 

This week’s Torah portion, Eikev, records another wonderful speech by Moses to the People of Israel. “What it all boils down to is this,” Moses seems to say as he tries – yet again – to explain the covenant and the way of life expected of the nation now living free and about to enter in its new homeland: “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you? Only this: to revere [literally “fear”] the Lord your God, to walk only in God’s paths, to love God, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, keeping the Lord’s commandments and laws which I enjoin upon you today, for your own good.” (Deut. 10: 12-13). 

This sounds pretty simple and straightforward. Moreover, “for your own good” is a nice built-in incentive…as is the implication that failure to do so will have results which are not for our own good!

Centuries later, the prophet Micah was inspired to make a similar summary statement in which we hear the echo of Moses’ words: “God has told you, O human, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you. Only to do justly, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8).

This week’s Torah portion, V’etchanan, includes some Hebrew words that, if a person in their life utters any Hebrew words at all, these words are probably among them: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad… “Hear O’Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.”

I’m curious what these words – so familiar – really mean to us?

From these words which our tradition has taken from the Torah and made into a prayer, a statement of faith – What do we internalize and make part of our being? These words which are to be our last said before going to sleep, when we wake up, and before we die; Words we are told to set upon our hearts, teach with care and loving and patience and intensity to our children; Words we are to say in our home and all along the roads we travel in our lifetime; Words we are supposed to bind onto our hands and keep before our eyes; The words we put in the mezuzot on our doorways and on our gates…What do these words really say to us?

Do we treat these words as a kind of magical incantation? Are these words a kind of catechism that we have to believe? (Don’t you think God was smarter than that – telling Jews what they have to believe?! Good luck with that!)

Shalom Chaverim!

Oftentimes the simplest things are the best. Sometimes they are the most important, too.

Take for example this week’s Torah portion which begins the last of the five books of the Torah. The world calls this book “Deuteronomy” which we can sort of understand from its Latin and Greek roots: deuteros meaning “second” (as in the number, sequence) and nomos, meaning “law”. The title “Deuteronomy” suggests that this book is about the 2nd presentation of the Torah as law. Indeed, among many other things, Deuteronomy contains Moses’ retelling of all that has come before. However it is told with elaborations, nuances, and many other details that make it more than a mere repeat.

Shalom Chaverim!

Do you like mysteries?

Have a look at the Hebrew below from the start of Numbers chapter 33 and notice the order of the underlined words in the second verse. This is from the start of the second of this week’s double Torah portion, Mattot-Massei:

אֵ֜לֶּה מַסְעֵ֣י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָצְא֛וּ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרַ֖יִם לְצִבְאֹתָ֑ם בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְאַהֲרֹֽן׃

וַיִּכְתֹּ֨ב מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־מוֹצָאֵיהֶ֛ם לְמַסְעֵיהֶ֖ם עַל־פִּ֣י יְהוָ֑ה וְאֵ֥לֶּה מַסְעֵיהֶ֖ם לְמוֹצָאֵיהֶֽם׃

With no need even to translate, did you notice that the order of the words has been reversed? There is nothing accidental in Torah. So we can ask “Why has the order been reversed? What is it trying to teach us?”

Though it probably is not your favorite thing to do, I nevertheless ask you to take a moment or two to try to recall something about Yom Kippur: Several times throughout the services of Yom Kippur, we recite the vidui, the “confession”. You know the one, where we strike our hearts accompanied by a plaintive melody as we list all the bad things we did. Those sins for which we confess are listed aleph-ad-taf, from “A” through to “Z”. The Reform Movement’s machzor (High holiday prayerbook) calls this “an alphabet of woes.” Now, keep in mind that each of us is not necessarily guilty of having personally committed all those ‘sins’. Nevertheless, we rise as one community to make the confession because we are all involved whether collectively as a community, as humans, and/or as members of a democratic society in which (as Heschel said) “not all are guilty but everyone is responsible.” Indeed, just before we recite the long list of misdeeds we say: “Our God and God of our ancestors, may our prayers come before You, and do not turn away from our supplication, for we are not so insolent and stubborn as to declare before You, Adonai our God and God of our ancestors, that we are righteous and have not sinned. For, indeed, we have sinned.”

I am eager for the approach of sunset today and the start of our annual Shabbat-on-the-Beach services. What I most love about the Jewish experience of life I find to be present in abundance when folks gather together at a beach to greet Shabbat as a community: The creating of a spirit of Jewish culture and innovation; The celebration of beauty and life-in-general by experiencing life specifically as Jews-in-particular; Being in-tune with “Jewish time” and the universe as we greet Shabbat to the waves’ rhythm; Experiencing the moment with you all and being a part of this community… What does true community feel like? Moses Maimonides said that because God is so beyond what we mere humans are, we cannot fathom anything that truly describes what God IS. So, claims Maimonides, the best we can do is to say what God is NOT. I’m not sure I agree totally, but Maimonides’ point came to mind when I re-read the poem below, by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. This poem is a fascinating reflection on this week’s Torah portion, Balak.