(no subject)
Oct. 3rd, 2017 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretThe holiday season's been going pretty well. I went home to my parents for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The services they've been going to for high holidays for the past several years moved to a newly built building after years of renting out a school cafeteria. It's still a bit of a schlep- about a two mile walk from my parents' house. Consequently we did not go to services for Mincha/Maariv on Rosh Hashanah, and on Yom Kippur I parked myself at the local library on the break between Mussaf and Mincha, because while I don't mind walking 4 miles on a chag, 8 is a bit much, especially when fasting.
For Rosh Hashanah, my sister and her husband came as well, so my mom had her full house back, which made her both happy and stressed out. There was this whole drama about the beds- my sister told my mom that if she was going to come for the holidays, they needed a bigger and more comfortable bed. Musical beds ensued- my sister's old bed moved to my brother's room, my brother's old bed moved to my room, my brother's couch was thrown out, all of this activity happening on various Sundays before Rosh Hashanah to make sure things would be ready for my sister and her husband. But in any case, it was a good time spent with family, and the prayer services were valuable as well as a time to take stock of where I am in my personal life and my spiritual life.
I started building my sukkah on Sunday- my brother came over for an hour to help with the two person parts of the job. I was way less stupid in my design this year and so it's actually a freestanding, reasonably solid structure, though still full of intense reminders of its own impermanence. Building a sukkah remains my favorite mitzvah that we actually carry out (My favorite mitzvah, full-stop, is v'asu li mikdash, for similar reasons). I'm really glad I now have my own backyard to build one in.
I went to a shiur on Sukkos last night and we talked a lot about a disagreement in the Gemara between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer about whether the sukkah symbolizes the actual booths the Israelites lived in in the wilderness of Sinai, or the Ananei Kavod, the Clouds of Glory that surrounded and protected the Israelites in their wanderings. The question seems to be about the degree to which the holiday of Sukkos emphasizes either the impermanence and uncertainty of our lives or the way that our relationship with God offers a counterpoint to that uncertainty. Obviously, it's about both, but which is primary?
I think my favorite observation at the shiur was that the chuppah and the sukkah are sort of matched opposites- the chuppah has a closed roof and open walls, the sukkah has an open roof and closed walls. The speaker didn't quite get anywhere with this parallel. He said it had something to do with embodying Avraham Avinu's constantly moving, evangelical lifestyle and I'm not sure what that means, but I feel like it has to mean something more interesting than that. Perhaps it's getting at two sorts of tensions between stability and movement: The chuppah represents a time when you give up some of your freedom to change your life and promise to provide a comfortable home to a partner and a new family. So the transition is from impermanent walls to permanent roof. Sukkos is a time when you have a comfortable home that you are forsaking for a week to remind yourself that you need to embrace change, so the transition is from permanent walls to impermanent roof. I think there's something in that.
So I suppose the answer to Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer's argument is that, as usual, they're both right. Which part of the symbolism of the Sukkah matters more will depend on what life stage you're in. And that the point of Sukkos is that they're both right: Sometimes change is a good thing, sometimes you need to appreciate what you have. Sukkos is designed to let you consider both possibilities at once.
For Rosh Hashanah, my sister and her husband came as well, so my mom had her full house back, which made her both happy and stressed out. There was this whole drama about the beds- my sister told my mom that if she was going to come for the holidays, they needed a bigger and more comfortable bed. Musical beds ensued- my sister's old bed moved to my brother's room, my brother's old bed moved to my room, my brother's couch was thrown out, all of this activity happening on various Sundays before Rosh Hashanah to make sure things would be ready for my sister and her husband. But in any case, it was a good time spent with family, and the prayer services were valuable as well as a time to take stock of where I am in my personal life and my spiritual life.
I started building my sukkah on Sunday- my brother came over for an hour to help with the two person parts of the job. I was way less stupid in my design this year and so it's actually a freestanding, reasonably solid structure, though still full of intense reminders of its own impermanence. Building a sukkah remains my favorite mitzvah that we actually carry out (My favorite mitzvah, full-stop, is v'asu li mikdash, for similar reasons). I'm really glad I now have my own backyard to build one in.
I went to a shiur on Sukkos last night and we talked a lot about a disagreement in the Gemara between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer about whether the sukkah symbolizes the actual booths the Israelites lived in in the wilderness of Sinai, or the Ananei Kavod, the Clouds of Glory that surrounded and protected the Israelites in their wanderings. The question seems to be about the degree to which the holiday of Sukkos emphasizes either the impermanence and uncertainty of our lives or the way that our relationship with God offers a counterpoint to that uncertainty. Obviously, it's about both, but which is primary?
I think my favorite observation at the shiur was that the chuppah and the sukkah are sort of matched opposites- the chuppah has a closed roof and open walls, the sukkah has an open roof and closed walls. The speaker didn't quite get anywhere with this parallel. He said it had something to do with embodying Avraham Avinu's constantly moving, evangelical lifestyle and I'm not sure what that means, but I feel like it has to mean something more interesting than that. Perhaps it's getting at two sorts of tensions between stability and movement: The chuppah represents a time when you give up some of your freedom to change your life and promise to provide a comfortable home to a partner and a new family. So the transition is from impermanent walls to permanent roof. Sukkos is a time when you have a comfortable home that you are forsaking for a week to remind yourself that you need to embrace change, so the transition is from permanent walls to impermanent roof. I think there's something in that.
So I suppose the answer to Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer's argument is that, as usual, they're both right. Which part of the symbolism of the Sukkah matters more will depend on what life stage you're in. And that the point of Sukkos is that they're both right: Sometimes change is a good thing, sometimes you need to appreciate what you have. Sukkos is designed to let you consider both possibilities at once.