Our Better Selves. Our Believing Selves

Some people wave, the saying goes, but everybody waves back. Think about it. Well, actually you don’t have to think about it. Waving back is as automatic a reflex as yawning back is.  

What are Sukkot’s automatic reflexes, waving at us, as we begin tonight’s Festival? Two stand out for me this year. First, elements of Sukkot are entirely natural. That is, they are entirely ill-suited to technology. The rooftop of the Sukkah-Booth must be made of branches or bamboo. Sort of the opposite of silicon. A second distinct feature of indwelling for meals and activities in the Sukkah itself assumes ingathering. It’s not nearly as individualistic as a High Holiday prayer to be inscribed for a New Year of life. It invites lots of good company. 

Let’s start with a week of less screen time. If you’re like me, the notion of sitting, up-close and personal with longtime-friends and with people you’re meeting for the first time, is such a refreshing alternative to doom scrolling. Can you imagine a coffee-shop without laptops or earbuds, where get-to-know-better conversation and chirping birds fill your head instead? And can you imagine filling both hands with a cluster of the Four Species, just to be phone-free for a short while? For all of us who worry how our brains are getting re-circuited and recruited, Sukkot’s rituals of sitting in the Sukkah and waving the Lulav remind us how fragrant human contact and nature can feel. 

Then there’s companionship. Every Sukkah invites it. True, not every interaction is pleasant. And, true, there are times when we prefer peace and quiet. But this annual Festival of Our Ingathering (Sukkot has many names) doesn’t require a declaration that the Passover Seder opens with: Let all who are hungry, come join us. Joining together is a big part of the plot on Sukkot. 

So much so that we find in Hallel (Psalms of praise) a verse of follow-through for Yom Kippur promises (repeated twice, Ps.116:14, 18). “I will fulfill my vows to you, dear God – in the sight of all your people” That is, whatever I pledged on Kol Nidre, I now bring to life in full view of others. I take this to mean, our better selves, our believing selves, get animated for others to see. Maybe this is another meaning of good company: companionship that pulsates with goodness. 

Over the next week, when you see someone wave their Lulav cluster, may it be instinctive to wave yours back.