Time of Our Rejoicing

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, September 29, 2007

When I think of the Israelites wandering in the desert I think of hardship and privation.

I think of our modern homeless shlepping everything they own with them in garbage bags or in shopping carts. I think about how I feel after a frustrating day of missed connections at the airport, or after a long trip, when I’ve been moving from place to place every day. How glad I am to be in my own bed and to be able to stay put and not have to move on the next morning.

During the forty years of wandering in the desert, it was not just able bodied adults in the prime of their lives who moved from oasis to oasis, but also young children, and elderly people. These weaker members of society were left to straggle at the end of the camp, at least in the beginning of the wanderings, and were victims of attacks by unscrupulous enemies like the Amalekites, who picked off the weakest members of the camp from the rear.

From the complaints of the Israelites in the book of Numbers, we know that they worried about finding fresh water, and that they longed for meat and for variety in their diet. Above all, we know that they lived with a profound sense of insecurity. They were heading to a place they had never seen, whose whereabouts was clear only to Moses. We know that when Moses delayed just one day coming down from Mt Sinai, a panic struck the entire camp and that repeatedly the Israelites wondered if they had done the prudent thing in leaving everything they knew to strike out into the unknown for the sake of freedom.

God seems to have appreciated how hard this must have been as repeatedly we are told that God remembers the loyalty of the Israelites at this time and gives them credit for their fortitude. Think of the words of the prophet Jeremiah (2:1) - “zacharti lach chesed neurayich- I remember in your favor, your loyalty as a young people, how you followed after me through the desert, through a land that was not sown.” Or Hosea’s recollection of God’s special relationship with the people when they ”were a child, just out of Egypt.” ( 11:1) It seems that on Succot we are remembering our ancestors strength in the face of these hardships and their endurance during the desert wanderings.

But then we have to wonder- why remember the wanderings in conjunction with a holiday called ZEMAN SIMCHATEINU, the time of our great rejoicing. If the Succah is a remembrance of hardship alone, there is some disconnect here.

This made me think about the lesser known passages in the Bible where the wanderings are portrayed somewhat differently. At the end of the summer, we read from the book of Deuteronomy, about God’s miraculous care of the Israelites during this time period.

Not only Miriam’s well which followed them through the desert and provided fresh water, not only the manna which fell every day and in double quantities on Friday, to provide a source of nourishment, which according to tradition tasted to each person like their most favorite delicacy, but also we are told that for the entire 40 years their clothes did not get threadbare nor did their shoes wear out. In some places in the Bible, the years in the desert are described as ideal, in that the people’s dependency on God was direct, and they were not lured into thinking that everything they possessed had been achieved by their own might. There is also the beautiful tradition that the roofs of the Sukkahs of the Israelites were not made of twigs and branches, like the s’chach we put on the roofs of our Sukkahs today. The Succot of the Israelites in the desert, according to Rabbi Eliezer, had ANANEI HAKAVOD, Clouds of God’s Glory, as their roofs.

This second picture of the period of the desert wanderings, reminds me of the reminiscences of an older couple for their first apartment, sure it was small, and they had few luxuries, but there was a special love that they felt for each other at that time. This picture of the time of the wanderings fits the general message of the holiday, that is that we can find happiness, in taking a temporary leave of all the possessions which we have amassed in our houses, and going out to the Succah to enjoy the more simple pleasures of being outside and having relaxed meals with our family and friends. We are reminded of all the good things provided for us in the world of nature, from the sun and the stars that we see through the Succah’s roof, to the bounty of the harvest, with which we decorate the Succah. Z’man Simchateinu, the time of our happiness, is not about having lots of man-made stuff and is not necessarily without hardship or sacrifice, but it can be a time of joy, if we focus on gratitude for the beauty of the natural world and on satisfaction with what we do have. Maybe that is how the strange book of Kohelet, of Ecclesiastes, that we read last night fits in as well, for it reminds us to eat our bread with joy and enjoy all the simple pleasures of our lives.