The Sukkah Will Rise Again

Well, welcome for our Erev Sukkot Podcast.

Thanks for joining me.

I don’t know whether you listened to last week’s Re-Podcast of The Yom Kippur Sermon I wanted to hear last year.

But some of it did focus on the fact that while Yom Kippur is all about crisis, and should be about crisis, and maybe last year our challenge was that we didn’t realize that we were in crisis, on Sukkot, there is this prayer that haunts me.

Haunts me, inspires me.

I have done previous episodes on this beautiful prayer that we say when we say Birchat HaMazon, when we say grace after meals.

And it goes as follows, Hrachaman huyachim lanu et sukat david hanufelet.

May the Merciful One raise up for us the fallen Tabernacle of David.

In a previous episode, I think it’s called FallingSukkah, I talk about, as I said in the intro, this amazing characteristic of the Sukkah, which ultimately is our tabernacle, is our temple.

And unlike a temple of bricks and mortar that is static, it, like the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said, is like that river, that no matter when you step into it, it’s going to be different.

It is flux, and the only thing that is permanent is flux, and that is the eternal secret of the Jewish people.

And I’ve dwelled upon the fact that it says Sukkah David Hanofelet.

It is a Sukkah that is constantly falling, and that it hangs by a thread, and it’s up to us to keep it standing.

But this year, unfortunately, we’ve gone through a cataclysmic crisis.

And at the end of the day, if October 7th, 2023, that occurred on Simchat Torah was anything, it was the destruction of the Sukkah.

The Sukkah fell.

The Sukkah was destroyed.

And that Sukkah that was constantly in flux and falling, fell to the ground and burned.

So tonight, we’re going to focus on the earlier part of the prayer.

Instead of focusing on the Sukkah that is falling, we’re going to focus on harachman huyakim lanu, that God will raise up once again that Sukkah.

And as I said in previous episodes, like all great prayers of the rabbis, this didn’t come out of a vacuum.

This came from Tanakh.

And it actually comes from Amos.

And in previous years, I would quote Amos 9: 10, where it says, “I will set up again the fallen booth of David.

I will mend its breaches and set up its ruins anew.”

But what in previous years I did not mention was the larger context of this prayer.

So Amos 9: 8 begins as follows, “Behold, my sovereign God is keeping an eye on the sinful kingdom.

I will wipe it off the face of the earth.

But I will not wholly wipe out the house of Jacob, declares God.

For I will give the order and shake the house of Israel through all the nations.

For behold, my sovereign God is keeping an eye on the house of Israel through all the nations.

כִּֽי־הִנֵּ֤ה אָֽנֹכִי֙ מְצַוֶּ֔ה וַהֲנִע֥וֹתִי בְכׇֽל־הַגּוֹיִ֖ם

Think of shaking the lulav and the etrog.

See: קָטָן הַיּוֹדֵעַ לְנַעְנֵעַ — חַיָּיב בְּלוּלָב

Tractate Sukkah, 42a

There’s a certain element of violence there.

There’s a certain element of Ra’ash, of noise there, of chaos and eruption.

“And God says he will shake the house of Israel.

And not a pebble falls to the ground.”

The metaphor is one of a sieve, where only the pebbles are retained and the sand falls through it and is lost.

In verse 10, it says, “All the sinners of my people shall perish by the sword.

Those who boast never shall evil overtake us or come near us.

In that day, I will set up again the fallen booth of David.

I will mend its breaches and set up its ruins anew.”

So this sense of Yakum Sukkot David Hanofelet is coming out of total tragedy, is coming out of the ashes.

“I will build it firm as in the days of old, so that they shall possess the rest of Edom.”

And it goes on to say that “I will restore my people Israel.

They shall rebuild ruined cities and inhabit them.

They shall plant vineyards and drink their wines.

They shall till gardens and eat their fruits.”

So as I said in the intro, this is at the end of the day an agricultural holiday.

And this is both a celebration, but an also a rejuvenation from the absolute destruction of our life as farmers from the land.

And one can only think of the kibbutzim that were on the first line of fire, all agricultural kibbutzim.

And one of the medieval commentaries on Amos, the Malbum, writes as follows, In that day I will raise the David Sukkah that has fallen.

And he writes, first the house of David was built and perfected in a permanent house, dependent on the sands of David from generation to generation.

And later there was no permanent house, only a temporary tabernacle, only a Sukkah.

And it was in the second house, the second temple, after the kingdom of the house of David was abolished.

And it’s kings, the Hasmunoiams, and Herod.

And in even though there were nesi’im, presidents from the seed of the house of David, which is similar to the temporary tabernacle.

Basically, the Malbum is going through the history of the Jewish people from when there was a solid permanent temple to when the Hasmonean built the second temple, which, although it had the seed of David possibly, was no longer the same.

And he really traces it up until his time, when the Jews were in exile, and he talks about a time.

It’s interesting if you read the text in the Sefaria notes, it’s not so much a time of the Messiah coming, it’s a time of a new Nasi, a new president, a new governance, similar to the revival of the state of Israel.

But if that sense of the Sukkah is not dark enough, because of course, we always think of Sukkot as Sukkat Shalom, in the Hashkimenu prayer that we say at the end of every maa’riv, God will guide us and guard us as we sleep at night.

The Sukkah is always this tabernacle that protects us, this shield that protects us.

But tonight, based on the past year, we’re looking at a different side of that Sukkah.

And in II Samuel 22, it says, “In my anguish, I called on the Lord, I cried out to my God.

In his temple, he heard my voice.

My cry entered his ear, then the earth rocked and quaked.

The foundations of heaven shook.

Rocked by indignation, smoke went up from his nostrils.

From his mouth was devouring fire.

Live colds blazed forth from him.

He bent the sky and came down.

Thick cloud beneath his feet.

He mounted a cherub and flew.

He was seen on the wings of the wind.

He made pavilions of darkness about him.

V’yashet, choshech, s’vivotav, sukkot.

וַיָּ֥שֶׁת חֹ֛שֶׁךְ סְבִיבֹתָ֖יו סֻכּ֑וֹת

So here we have an allusion to a Sukkah who is dark, who is part of the overbearing, overconsuming, overwhelming death and destruction.

“He made pavilions of darkness about him, dripping clouds, huge thunderheads in the brilliance before him, blazing fiery coals.

The Lord thundered forth from heaven.”

This is a totally different image of Sukkah than we have normally seen.

It is that temporary structure, but it’s that structure that does not protect us.

It is that structure that at the end of the day, that represents our vulnerability and our smallness and our foes that are around us.

“From foes too mighty for me, they attacked me on my day of calamity.

But the Lord was my stay.

He brought me out to freedom.

He rescued me because he was pleased with me.”

We say Psalms, and I’ve said this so many years, even last week’s re-broadcast of last year, that we say Psalm 27, starting at the beginning of Elul, and only ending not on Yom Kippur, because the gates of prayer, the gates of repentance, do not actually close at Neelah.

They close at the end of Sukkot, on Hoshana Rabbah.

And we say Psalm 27, and in it we say, achat sha’alti me’et adonai, O’to vakesh, one thing I ask of the Lord, only that do I seek, to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to frequent his temple.

And then it says, ki yitspaneni besukka biyom ra,

כִּ֤י יִצְפְּנֵ֨נִי ׀ בְּסֻכֹּה֮ בְּי֢וֹם רָ֫עָ֥ה

he will shelter me in his pavilion on the evil day, grant me the protection of his tent, raise me high upon a rock.

So this sense of the Sukkah being associated, not only with protection, but also with yom ra, a terrible, tragic day, is two sides of the same coin.

It is a tension.

It is a dialectic.

And the fascinating thing is, as we approach Simchat Torah, and we ask ourselves, how can we celebrate Simchat Torah on this terrible day?

The irony is, this is not the first time, that Sukkot became associated with a tragedy, and the question was asked, how can we celebrate Sukkot?

The truth is, the rabbis and scholars ask, why Chanukah is eight days?

It’s the only holiday that is eight days…. Even in Israel.

And many answers are given.

Of course, the traditional answer is that the pach shemen, the little vial of oil, lasted for eight days, and that was the miracle.

But in the Book of Maccabees II (1: 20-22) , it actually relates a whole different other story.

And it says, Thanks and praise to the Lord, for he has cut off the wicked from the land, they are no more.

And now there is in our lives to celebrate the day of the dedication of the altar on the 25th of the month of Kislev.

We did not refrain from making it known to you to celebrate it with us.

You will celebrate it like the days of the Festival of Booths, and like the day that on it Nehemiah found the Holy Fire.

וחגותם אותו כימי חג הסוכות

So based on Maccabees 2, Chapter 1, Verse 22, and Maccabees 2, Verse 17, where it says, Now we wrote for you all these things so that you will celebrate this Festival.

So, Tehagu imanu et hachag hazeb.

למען תחוגו עמנו את החג הזה

The only Festival that is called Chag is Sukkot.

Scholars have learnt that the real reason, the historical reason that Hanukkah is eight days, is for a number of reasons, one of which is fascinating, and you can find a link to it in the notes, that the Jews amongst themselves could not decide on the proper procedure, could not decide on a vision for the future, could not figure out what the calendar was, that Sukkot was not celebrated that year, and was pushed off.

And ultimately, when they finally figured it out, it was Kislev, and they celebrated Sukkot in Kislev for eight days.

So I bring this up, not only because it’s an interesting fact of history, but again, it shows, number one, that Sukkot has been associated with tragedy, with turmoil, with even divisions within the Jewish people.

And there are other times possibly that we were able to celebrate the Simcha of Sukkot, and that I think will impact maybe Simchat Torah/Hanukkah this year, or in future years.

But again, the main point that I’m trying to make is that this Chag, Simchatenu, it is not the first time that Simcha and joy has been missing.

There are those that call Hanukkah the second Sukkot.

The message of the second Sukkot is clear.

“Judaism is so important that if necessary, Jews will create new ways to observe our Jewish tradition.” (see: Rebooting Hanuka and the scholar Jonathan Goldstein)

I started in the introduction.

I made reference to the rising of the phoenix, and there are those amongst us, I included, who thought that this concept, this myth of the rising of the phoenix, was actually Greek in origin.

And maybe there are Greek mythologies that include the phoenix. (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology) )

But it is interesting that this tradition also is in Tanakh.

In Job 29: 18, it says, “I thought I would end my days with my family and be as long live as the phoenix.”

Va omer im kni egva u kachol arbe yamim.

וָ֭אֹמַר עִם־קִנִּ֣י אֶגְוָ֑ע וְ֝כַח֗וֹל אַרְבֶּ֥ה יָמִֽים

So Rashi says, kachol, this is a bird named chol, phoenix, upon which the punishment of death was not to creed.

because it did not taste of the tree of knowledge.

And at the end of one thousand years, it renews itself and returns to its youth.

So there is within our Tanakh, this concept of the ability to rise from the ashes.

It’s interesting that the association, at least from the Midrashim that Rashi cites, has to do with eating or in this case, on not eating.

And in this case, from the tree of knowledge.

The Rabbeinu Bachaya says, according to Bereshit Rabah, the word Gam teaches that she also gave to all the animals from the fruit of that tree.

So according to this Midrash, according to the Rabbeinu Bachaya, when Chava, when Eve took from the tree of knowledge, she not only gave it to Adam, she also gave it to all of the other animals.

According to that Midrash, there was only a single bird called Chol, which did not eat from the fruit of that tree.

I’m just realizing right now, Chol also comes from the same root as Hullin, Chol, which is secular, which is not-holy.

Chiloni comes from the same, the same Shoresh as Chol. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiloni

I just thought of that.

This fact is alluded to in Job.

He quotes our Pasuk, and he says, According to Rabbi Yudan, this bird has a lifespan of a thousand years.

At the end of that time, fire erupts in its nest, and less than the size of an egg of it remains before it regenerates itself.

So here we have within our tradition, the ability of species, the ability of a people, the ability of that which is created by God to rejuvenate, to come from the whole, to come from extinction, and to come back to life.

In Sanhedrin 108b, it quotes Shem, Noah’s first born son, and Shem continued, With regard to the phoenix, the avarashinah.

My father found it lying in its compartment on the side of the ark.

So Noah is in the ark, all the animals are there.

He’s tending to all the animals, and he sees the phoenix lying on the side of the ark.

He said to the phoenix, Do you not want food?

The bird said to him, I saw that you were busy, and I said I would not trouble you by requesting food.

Noah said to the bird, may it be God’s will that you shall not die.

And through that bird the verse was fulfilled as it is said, and I said I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the phoenix.

He quotes the verse from Job.

So it’s fascinating to me that in all of the Midrashim, that relate to the phoenix, the reason the phoenix lives forever is has to do with feeding, I would say also letting others eat in its stead, being a part of the food chain in terms of saying to Noah, take care of those in more need than me.

It has nothing to do with a ritual.

It has nothing to do with holiness.

It has to do with the most basic ability to put others’ needs in front of one’s own.

So where does that bring us today as we try to contemplate what that Sukkah means to us?

Is it a Sukkah that is always falling, held by a thread, or is it the Sukkah of the past year that has actually fallen, that has actually burnt, that has actually not provided the protection that we wanted?

And is it the Sukkah that, like the phoenix, rises up and gives itself new life, possibly by caring for others, possibly by thinking of others?

And as I surveyed what is happening today in Israel and how Israelis are addressing both the High Holidays, Yom Kippur, and the upcoming holiday of Sukkot, I think I saw a pattern.

I am a great fan of Daniel Gordis’ podcast, Israel from the Inside, and you can subscribe to it on Substack. https://danielgordis.substack.com/

He talks about this year’s Yom Kippur that actually fell on Shabbat.

And I have talked about the whole point of Yom Kippur, is that we have to break with the regular.

https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/we-sought-healing-we-sought-mercy

And Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat, where Shabbat, because it happens 52 times a year, should take precedence over Yom Kippur, we throw that out, we turn it on its head, and in fact Yom Kippur absolutely overwhelms Shabbat.

And as a result, we do not traditionally say the prayer, Avinu Malkenu.

And Daniel Gordis says that in the synagogue that he was at, he writes as follows, the traditional custom is not to recite the prayer known as Avinu Malkenu on Yom Kippur when it falls on Shabbat.

This past Friday note, though, right after Kol Nidri, and before the rest of the evening service, someone stood up to announce that the community’s leadership had decided, as did many other synagogues in Israel this year, that we would recite it.

No one needed an explanation, for everyone there knew what Avinu Malkenu says.

Our father, our king, nullify the plans of those who hate us.

Our father, our king, thwart the counsel of our enemies.

Our father, our king, tear up the evil decree against us.

Our father, our king, be gracious to us and answer us and save us.

But the person announcing the change still felt an explanation was in order.

She started to say something, stopped and started to cry.

The explanation was dropped.

What was there really to say when nothing at all needed explaining?

And so Daniel Gordis records not the fact that his congregation came up with a new prayer, but they said an old prayer in a non-traditional way.

In a sense, they brought themselves out of the ashes, or they began the process of bringing themselves out of the ashes by breaking a rule, by breaking a tradition, by asserting themselves, by saying the Avinu Malkenu.

And it reminded me of  Klausenburger Rebbe, who survived the holocaust, and when they read the V’Kochacha, the part of the Torah that is normally read silently in a whisper, he clapped on the stender, and he said, read it out loud.

It has already happened. See: https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/281519/jewish/Louder.htm

The Jews in Israel, the Israelis, we Jews around the world, we’re finding ourselves in the ashes of this burnt Sukkah.

And I just found that so powerful that they ran ahead and read the Arvino Malkenu on Shabbat, on Yom Kippur.

But I was at Lincoln Square Synagogue on Yom Kippur, and Rabbi Shaul Robinson quoted some other prayers that are being written, and as he said, predominantly by women.

And there is a Sefer, a book, that has come out, and it’s called Az-Nashir, We Will Sing Again.

It’s not available in the US yet, but it will be.

And it is prayers that have been created in response and to cope with the year that we’ve been through and the way that we surely will be, have to look at our prayers, look at our rituals, look at our Hagim differently.

One of the prayers that he read was a variation on the vidui.

The vidui is normally a confession.

We all know it, Oshamnu, Bagadnu, Gizalnu, Dibarnu Dofi.

But based on Rav Kook, who said just as there is a great merit in confessing our sins, there is also a great merit in recognizing our good deeds.

A certain Enat Kapach, who I understand lectures on film and Jewish identity at the Ma’aleh Film School in Jerusalm, composed a prayer, V’idui al ha’tov sh’asinu ha’shanah, a V’idui, a confession on the good, that we did this year.

And it reads as a follow, Eloheinu re’ei, ki’i ahadanu kohot, God see that we united our strength, we cooked meals, we enlisted to fight, we grieved, we came forward, and we went back, and we remembered the hostages, the death and the wounded, we planned, we prayed for miracles, we wrote consolation letters, we hugged hearts and wiped our tears, we fought like lions, we suffered tragedy, we packed boxes, we gave food, we picked crops, we shivered, we harnessed our strength, we felt pity, we drank blood and tears.

Look at our work, give us your heart, listen to our prayers.

Look at our work, give us your heart, listen to our prayers.

These are prayers that were written by women and that will join Piyutim, that were composed throughout the history of the Jewish people to address the needs of the times.

There have been multiple articles on prayer services that were held at the Khatufim Square outside of the Tel Aviv museum, where they did slichot, where they’ve done havdalah.

There’s no interest in separating men from women in deciding what the exact halacha is.

People are coming together.

There are charedim, there are chilonim, that all understand the moment and are looking into our traditional prayers and our piyutim in a new way.

These prayers are bringing us together, and we are creating new prayers.

In past episodes, we’ve talked about how the kibbutz movement created Hagadot, that we’re uniquely Jewish, we’re uniquely Zionist, we’re uniquely expressions of the spiritual and political and human needs of the moment.

And we are seeing that in front of our eyes happening in Israel.

And I am arguing that that is part of what it takes to raise the phoenix from the ashes, to raise the Sukkah from the ashes.

Here is another prayer by Rachel Sharansky Danziger.

Yes, Sharansky, this is the daughter of Natan Sharansky.

Lord, please heal them.

All are your wounded, all the heroines, all the heroes, who bled for the sanctification of your name, who fought like lions, who clutched at life, who survived the hatred of all your enemies, and are now hanging between life and death, with their future is in your hands.

Adonai, Adonai, merciful and compassionate Lord, here I stand before you to plead, to weep, to ask, for a complete healing for our wounded.

You are great in grace and full of truth.

This book will obviously be available soon in the United States, and we will be able to read these prayers that organically are being created in Israel.

Another episode of Daniel Gordis, he published a video shot by Khan, the TV network in Israel, and it’s in the show notes on Sefaria. See: https://danielgordis.substack.com/p/the-glass-is-only-a-quarter-full

And he put English subtitles, so you are free to view them.

And the title of the beautiful searing video is We Are Still Here.

And it talks about the ability of Israelis to survive, to persevere, to cope, to mix simcha with tragedy, whether it’s at a Jewish wedding, or whether it’s having Yom HaZikaron the day before Yom HaAtsmut.

It talks about the periphery and the center of Israel being united.

It talks about the ability of all of us, when the government failed, to cope and to come together.

It is a searing revelation and ode to what the Jewish people and what the Israelis discovered about themselves.

And I will argue that that is the source of the ability for that Sukkah to rise from the ashes.

When we find that what in fact holds us together is stronger, not only than anything that brings us apart, but is the glue that enables us to find out that we can rely on ourselves by feeding each other, by caring for each other, like that phoenix bird in Noah’s Ark.

And I will conclude in the show notes.

You will find another podcast that I love is Dan Senor’s Call Me Back.

And there, he has an interview with Matti Friedman.

See: https://open.spotify.com/episode/19lBdAbZGUwFw4v1o5ZPTK?si=NU-S8bcmQ82ZS_1iMCPJQw

And he writes as follows, Israelis I think are really at a moment of despair.

The kibbutzim along the Gaza border as a kind of metaphor.

Kibbutzim that are full of people who are from the left fringe, even of Israeli society.

People who believe in peace, people who are in some cases driving Palestinian kids, from Gaza to Israeli hospitals.

And those people are slaughtered by their neighbors in Gaza.

So there’s really not much left in that old dream that lasted up until 2000 of a peaceful resolution.

At the same time, I think we’re seeing the limits of military power.

We’ve been in Gaza for a year.

We’ve been hitting Hamas for a year.

And yesterday, they fired rockets from Gaza.

So, there’s also a sense that the limits of military power have been reached.

And one of the most striking moments at the family ceremony on October 7th was when Jonathan Shamritz, who’s this young man who I mentioned, the brother of a hostage who was killed in Gaza, when he spoke and he’s speaking from the heart and the crowd which included Israelis across the political spectrum, as far as I could see.

It was really kind of a cross-section of everyone who’s ever been hurt by the war.

He said, we have no leadership and we have no vision.

And that’s 100% true.

I mean, I think you can discuss whether or not the Netanyahu government has done a good job of running the war, but there’s no question that Netanyahu is a leader who is unable to provide a hopeful vision for the people who live here.

He’s a very dark character.

He sees threats and claims to be the best person to deal with the threats, but he has no hope to offer a country whose national anthem is literally called the hope.

Hatikvah means the hope.

But at the same time, in that ceremony, which I encourage listeners to find, you can find it online.

You can see this guy who’s speaking and he ends his speech, which is a critique of the leadership, a statement that we have no vision, a call for a commission of inquiry into what happened on October 7th, which still has not happened.

Most of the people who were in charge of the country on October 7th and in charge of the army are still in charge.

And Israelis have not been given good answers about how that could have happened.

And the people responsible have, for the most part, not paid the price for what happened.

So he’s giving this very dark comment on the state of our society a year into this war.

And he ends by saying, what we’re seeing now is the birth of the new Israeli generation.

That there is not just resilient, but is incredibly powerful.

And it’s the generation that we’re seeing now fighting in Gaza and in Lebanon.

An incredible young generation.

And he ended his speech by saying, get up, Am Yisrael Chai.

The people of Israel live.

So it’s a dark statement about our leadership, but it’s a statement of pure Zionism.

So I think that you can see kind of a despair about the government, but an incredible energy that’s bubbling in Israeli society at this moment of crisis.

And our hope is that the energy can somehow be channeled into political change and a better leadership that can take us out of this moment of crisis and into the future.

So with those inspiring words, all I can say is harachaman huyachim lanu et sukat tov et ha’an afelet.

הָרַחֲמָן הוּא יָקִים לָֽנוּ אֶת־סֻכַּת דָּוִד הַנּוֹפָֽלֶת

May God, may we, our people, sitting in that temporary sukkah, find the strength that is within us all to rebuild our country, to rebuild our nation, to rebuild our people, and to build it stronger and better, knowing that what holds us together is more powerful than any other force in nature and in history.

So I wish you all a Chag Sameach.