By Jove: Sukkot, Our Jovial Time
“Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove’s planet rises yonder…”
– Home thoughts from the Sea, Robert Browning (1845)
On the surface, they were obviously dissimilar, Jimmy hirsute, Mitch glabrous, Tuli unveiled. Jimmy was invariably dapper, replete with ascot and pocket square; Mitch was a stellar athlete, captain of his wrestling and basketball teams, Tuli an acclaimed physician, beloved pediatrician.
Jimmy was the son of a legendary jurist, born with a silver spoon, raised in a majestic environment, the others, children of the outer-boroughs. Two prematurely lost their dads; one was outlived by his.
Their paths crossed, Jimmy and Tuli residing in the same building, Mitch and Tuli playing basketball together, but the three never truly became friends.
What united them was more important than what differentiated them. Indeed, in all three cases, it defined them. Each was jovial.
Their approach to joviality differed. Jimmy mastered the sardonic ironic observation made hilarious by its veracity. Mitch relied on personal farcical anecdotes told so enthusiastically resistance was futile (no matter how often previously heard.) Tuli was the classic borscht-belt comedian, possessing an encyclopedic reservoir of jokes hair-triggered by any commonality.
Their destination however, was the same, each determined to put a smile on our face.
Misery demands company, to the accompanists’ detriment. They demanded our merriment, to our benefit.
Joviality is derided. I heard each of them dismissed as a clown, Badchen, court jester.
Intellectuals pursuing existential truths belittle humor as the least common denominator. An omniscient smirk sets you above; laughing reduces us to the vulgar masses.
Genius is never jovial; sexy isn’t jovial; discriminating isn’t jovial. Distinguished is antithetical to jovial; frivolous is synonymous. Cheerleaders are jovial. The heroes we venerate are not.
Though they have been gone decades, I think of Jimmy, Mitch and Tuli every Sukkot. Of our six Jewish holidays, it is the only one labeled as “The time of our happiness.”
That makes no sense.
Rosh Hashanah is new clothing, new fruit, old friends in Shul, honey on everything. Purim is costumes, noisemakers, imbibing. Pesach is festive familial Seders, 4 cups of wine, trips to lavish resorts. Shavuot is staying up all night, the school year imminently ending, and (Yum) cheesecake. Hanukkah is latkes, dreidels, Gelt, Sufganiyot, and presents.
Sukkot, on the other hand, is defined by eating and (if possible) sleeping in the Sukkah.
That means lunches, carrying food and plates back-and-forth from the house, fending off bees attracted by the now stale, leftover honey, dinner, shivering in overcoats, manipulating utensils with gloved fingers, nights trying to sleep while freezing, worrying about intruders, bipedal and quadrupedal.
Branding Sukkot our joyous holiday was incomprehensible to me until I asked my children their happiest holiday memory. To my utter shock, they described the experience of sleeping in our Sukkah.
The five of us crammed together, of necessity, on top of each other, on a queen-size mattress filling every square inch of floor-space in our too cozy Sukkah. We complained, giggled, tickled each other, screamed at every ominous sound, laughed hysterically, eventually dozed off from exhaustion, enveloped in each other’s warmth.
They were unequivocally the most uncomfortable nights we ever experienced. And the best.
Though their inveterate gregariousness made some uncomfortable, Jimmy, Mitch and Tuli were also the best. Whether they were having a bad or good day, they were determined to make our day better. If we were sagacious enough to enter their Sukkah, after a few minutes, we were jovial as well.
A hearth turns a house into a home. They turned any occasion into a joy. They were more than a fireplace that radiates heat to those sitting close by. They were more efficient, irresistible, forced-air heaters.
I recall joyous memories of, paradoxically, Shul dinners, staff lectures, board meetings, normally as appealing as frigid Sukkoths. Sitting next to Jimmy, Mitch or Tuli however, meant I couldn’t stop laughing, no matter how inappropriate it seemed to speakers demanding our “Undivided attention.”
Indeed, the unseemlier it was, the more impossible it was to stop giggling. A gleam in Jimmy’s eye, a gesture from Mitch, a quip from Tuli would set me off. As rude as it appeared to others then, my only regret now, is it didn’t happen more often.
I regret even more I never told them how much I appreciated their never-ending efforts to raise my spirits. I waited too long to become their cheerleader.
Tragically, their flames have been extinguished. Though they fought heroically against inexorable adversaries, in the end, they lost. Even in the end however, they never lost their Joie de vivre.
The only thing vulgar about them is that they died prematurely. That each was outlived by their mother is obscene. Each was so larger than life, I never imagined they would ever die at all. I was tragically wrong.
Jovial derives from Jove, the king of the mythical gods. Jovian, from the same deity, refers to a sudden, arbitrary, inequitable destructive lightning bolt.
Their lives were jovial, their deaths Jovian.
Sukkot is our jovial time because it culminates with Simchat Torah, the joy of Torah. I’m not certain that justifies characterizing the entire holiday as joyous. I am certain the time I spent with Jimmy, Mitch and Tuli was a complete joy, from beginning to end.
They were more than jovial; they were derived from Jove. They were divine. That is no myth.
Joviality is a virtue. If genius means brilliant, it is genius; if sexy means alluring, it is sexy. It is a brilliantly alluring Mitzvah, the highest form of Tzedaka, consistently giving, seeking nothing in return.
Like many of the most precious things in life, we take it for granted until we lose it.
