I
can’t shake this feeling that there is something missing.
Maybe
it is the weight of a laptop bag missing from my shoulder.
Maybe
it is the way I can casually walk by Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf without the
anxiety of finding an outlet and an empty table.
Maybe
it is the dining room table that is no
longer a temporary workspace, overrun with sermon drafts and notes.
There
is a strangeness to these days, the days immediately after Yom Kippur and
before Sukkot. And I don’t think I am just saying that because I am a rabbi,
because these are our “Superbowl Sunday” or “New York Marathon.” I believe that
all of you felt it, feel it, as well. There is something special, even magical,
that happens in those moments—our cantors’ majestic voices, the quiet
contemplation of Yizkor, the anticipation and excitement building through
Ne’ilah. There is this sense, this beautiful, meaningful sense that we are all
in it together, that we are not alone, that we can and will make a difference
in our lives and in the world.
My
colleague, Rabbi Sharon Brous, unknowingly summed up just what I felt as I
looked out over the crowds on Wednesday morning. I realized it was, maybe,
inappropriate to the day, but I kept smiling as I saw your faces. In her Kol
Nidrei sermon this year, she wrote:
It’s that I
love that for all of your cynicism, skepticism, discomfort, alienation,
marginalization -you still come. Trying
to find something – holding out the possibility that maybe, just maybe
something will happen. So you fight for
parking and stand in line and come and sit here on our crummy rental chairs, no
idea if the AC will blow out mid-service turning this into a sweat lodge or
some kind of bikram davening experience.
You come pretty much knowing it’s not all going to feel good – the day is
long and the liturgy is challenging and I’m going to, in some very loving way,
kick your spiritual a$% over the course of our time together…But you show up –
with your questions of imminence and transcendence, your struggles over life’s
meaning and your purpose in the world.
And
we do. We struggle, and we strain, we are bored, we are inspired, we are moved,
we are “utzy.” We are here. We are together.
And
then….havdallah. We separate, literally
and figuratively. We all go our separate ways, carrying memories and moments
and melodies. We go back—to the emails, the voicemails, the piles that we left
on Tuesday afternoon. We go back:
--into a world where rabid anti-Islam
fanaticism is plastered in the New York City subway, claiming to speak for me
as a Jew.
--into a world where the vision of Israel’s
existence as a Jewish, democratic, and physical state is unclear, and something
to be debated by diplomats and dictators alike.
--into a world where the problems I had, we
had, before Yom Kippur, are still there, looming…maybe just a little bit
smaller.
It
feels jarring. Each year, the day after Yom Kippur feels surreal—even without
the exhaustion. I think of it as a spiritual hangover; there’s so much, there’s
TOO much in these first 10 days of Tishrei. And so, waking up without it—I
felt—maybe we feel—a bit adrift. A bit lonely. Even a bit sad. To say nothing
of the ache in my knees!
But,
of course, our tradition is wise to the challenge. Our tradition recognizes
that, like Moses coming down from the mountain, it is too hard to simply jump
right back into the every day. And so, tradition teaches us that—while one can
build a sukkah beginning 30 days
before the holiday itself, the ideal time to do it is the night after Yom
Kippur. Have a bagel, grab a hammer.
I
want to suggest tonight—as we look ahead to Sukkot on Sunday night, that there
are two reasons for this. One is traditional, one experiential. Traditional
commentaries suggest that we build a sukkah
immediately after breaking the fast in order that we go from mitzvah to mitzvah. In other words, we stave off the inevitable—creating this
artificial space in which our behavior remains spotless. We don’t give
ourselves the time to slide back into old patterns, we move from one thing to
the next, barely giving ourselves a chance to reflect on what was before we
turn to what will be. It’s a smart tradition, if a difficult one.
But
there is a deeply experiential piece of Sukkot, and therein, I think, lies the
answer to my dilemma of how to re-enter the world.
Sukkot
is, more than any other holiday, a holiday of vulnerability. We are required to
be open—open to the elements of wind and rain, of cold or blistering heat. We
are expected to be uncomfortable—to not have all of our “stuff,” to live
without some of the creature comforts. We are enjoined to leave our homes and possessions and to go out to the
sukkah, protected only by the wings of the Divine presence. It’s scary,
just like the world. But it is also a space for growth, and for incredible
potential.
The
High Holy Days are, among other things, a chance to live in the world as it
could be. They are a chance to imagine our best selves, and with it—imagine our
best world. Cocooned within these walls, it all seems real, it all seems
possible. Sukkot is a chance—a requirement—to live in the world as it is. A
world where not everyone has comfortable, permanent housing. A world where the
custom of ushpizin—of inviting
guests—can be an exclusive, hate-mongering experience. A world where the very
structures in which we ground our lives—are fragile, impermanent. But, we get
to do it surrounded by the Divine Presence, sure only of ephemeral comfort and
protection. And it is with that Presence, with that protection, that we can
ease ourselves back into life—back into our task of transforming the world as
it is into the world as it could be.
Because
it is possible. It is real. And we are in it together.
The
old-wives tale says that the only cure for a hangover is the tail of the dog
that bit you. My cure for the spiritual hangover of Yom Kippur? Sukkot. Come
join us Monday morning, study in the sukkah
next Saturday, shake lulav and etrog and samachta
b’chagecha—rejoice in the Festival. Rejoice in the world as it is, and
start building for the world as it could be.
