Rosh Hashanah, and the Sukkah I Barely Recognize
prologue
It’s the eve of Rosh Hashanah, and I can’t get Sukkot out of my mind.
I’ve always loved Sukkot. Yet, in this moment, I’m struggling to find balance within love. Somethings not right, not right at all, though still, within the inner sukkah walls of love, an eternal, if wounded, heavenly embrace resides; as do we all, as does our precious land and country. I wonder, of what will our sukkah be made this year? What material, what spirit, here in the land flowing with milk, trauma, and honey. What will be its very air, and will it yet impart its singular wisdom and otherworldly inspiration, its דביקות, its peerless joy?
Sometimes we find things, and sometimes they find us.
Perhaps you will find something here too—
Our balcony flag waves in the late summer breeze. Is that a star, or is that a heart?
… a breeze born of six divergent vectors. Howling streams of battered souls, angelic volunteers, and heroes.
Each a facet of eternity emergent, and yet, a whole; a shleimut lacking shleimut, a dissonance clinging to harmony. A majestic portrait with frayed piercings where hearts once were.
Where—
“The nature and force of our strength abhors dominance and destruction. It seeks to refine, polish, and elevate. The imminence of conflict expands the parameters of existence.” (R. Kook, Yisrael V’tchiato 8, Orot Hakodesh 3:58)
And at its center lies a child’s seed; pure and pristine, innocent and alone. Destined to be plunged into the dark earth, into decay awaiting the day, when a tender shoot wills itself toward the silent beckon of a hidden light. There, while each storming vector surges, the silver platter of hope holds contradictions and conundrums that become One, because they are, multitudes.
From the hopelessly parched earth of emuna-faith gone dark, faith yet dares to open half an eye, as lips of joy search for a whisper. As does tikvah and her twin, despair. For what is a life without love, and can there be love without torment? And then again, what is our nation without the emuna of ages, and can there still be an age of faith without tears and ragged rages?
And so we walk to the eve of Rosh Hashanah, as we begin to weave our sukkah walls with threads of בתוך עמי אנוכי יושת, Amidst my nation do I dwell.
On the day of the great teruah, a hidden king rides upon a child’s bicycle named kippur. Then bind our willows will we, to the etrog whose blemish is us, to the each and all of us, redeemed in the binding. To the frail sukkot of fleeting October 7th time gone awry. Bidden to dance as we weep, like the mute willows of Reim, and to sing: Why?
!
Wrapped there in our tallit, our degel yisrael flag, our six scorched lungs of brotherhood. Still.
Still and forever. A hushed eternal splendor emerging from a dark well of colliding echoes. Finding their way to the threshold of just one more step into—
A stand still at 6:29 am Sukkot of the 7th. That harkens to the primal 600,000, the 6 million, and to just yesterday’s 600,000, reborn in the Land of ‘48. Here we are, vectored and vexed, whirling in a heavenly dervish dance of souls. One dancing leg; strong, sturdy, and striding. The other, dragging itself to nowhere. One eye gleaming, the other a river of tears. And thus we will dance, arms and hearts locked, while carried to the sukkah I so loved yesterday, so dread today, and swear to embrace with Knesset Yisrael tomorrow, because it’s the season of zman: simchatei…
epilogue
Avi. My father.
Natan. Gave.
Ohr. Light.
Avinatan Ohr has been starved and brutalized in the torturous netherworld of Gazan tunnels for 714 days. I heard one of his sisters speak about her source of light brother, and their sister Emunah, who was married a few weeks ago. How does one wholeheartedly dance on a sister’s wedding day when that day is the 683rd day in a row that all you think about, all you feel, is your hostage brother’s suffering? The answer is that you can’t, unless you live in an other-worldly sukkah-country called Israel. Unless you live in a small, sometimes desperately vulnerable sukkah, that today, after three thousand years, stands deeply wounded, and simultaneously strong, proud, and more beautifully radiant than ever. And then …
… at another wedding in this shattered yet whole and holy country called Israel, a young bride, her parents, and a rabbi, walked us all down an aisle to eternity. The bride, Roni, had been engaged to marry Tzvi Granot. Not long after their engagement, Tzvi fell in battle protecting the Jewish state from the massively armed Hezbollah Jihadis. At the funeral, Tzvi’s father, Rabbi Tamir Granot, urged Roni to embrace the very essence of Jewish life and “choose life.” Eight months later, Roni came to the home of Rabbi and Mrs. Granot to tell them of her engagement, and to request that he officiate at her upcoming wedding. Can you imagine the flood of emotions in that moment? Can anyone, other than them? Then, when holding the glass of wine under the chuppah, Rabbi Granot said, “Today I mix my tears with wine. This makes this moment more real, and more joyous.” Later, when asked to reflect on that day, he said, “The Hebrew word for “crisis,” mashber, comes from the ancient word for the place where women gave birth. We are a people that has survived catastrophes unlike any other. Somehow, we recover and even leverage crisis to birth a better self. Ours is a people whose path often travels along the way of the supernatural.”
Indeed, just last week, I listened to Eli Shtivi who had buried his son Idan whose body was heroically recovered after being held for almost 700 days, and then, the day after Eli got up from shiva, with a radiant smile, he welcomed a new grandchild into the sukkah of Am Yisrael. To hear him speak in the same breath of the depth of loss and the shimmering embrace of life was stunning. This Rosh Hashanah eve, his eyes showed me the way to a Sukkot that will begin on Oct. 7th, and conclude, as forever, on Simchat Torah.
Dear …
Am. The nation that is a family.
Yisrael. From the children of Israel to the State of Israel.
Chai. That does, and always will, embrace life.
Shana Tova.
