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| Sukkah (via Rachel Pasch, www.flickr.com/photos/rachelpasch/) |
Moving our everyday lives from inside our protected homes
and out into the natural world reminds of our vulnerability to and dependence
upon the natural world. Almost all of our religious traditions were founded by
communities who lived in much more direct physical contact with their
surrounding environments than we do today. We are still physical beings living
lives of entire dependence upon the resources of our world, but today that
connection is often more obscured, with insulation, plumbing, and heating, with
cement pavement and steering wheels.
The rabbis of the Mishnah, when they set out the guidelines for
the festival of Sukkot around the 2nd century, requires sukkahs to
have roofs constructed of natural, unprocessed materials. Heavy rain must be
able to penetrate the roof, and you should be able to see the stars through it.
Spending time in sukkahs reminds us
that all of our shelter ultimately comes from the natural world that provides
everything that we have. A sukkah must be able to sway with, and even be
blown down by, heavy winds. We like to think of the regular physical structures
in our lives in contrast to the sukkah, as resilient and permanent. Anyone who
has been watching the news for the last 5,000 years, though, knows that none of
our dwelling places are permanent, and that none of them can truly separate us
from the world they are built on.
On Sukkot we are to take away the barriers we erect between
ourselves and our environment. Sukkot is not about deprivation, though; it is a
harvest festival, a time when we are told, “you shall rejoice before the Lord
your God seven days.”* We go out to where we can see the sky and feel the wind
so that we can be before God and to celebrate what the natural world gives us.
Sukkot reminds us of our physical connection with nature by
taking us outside and telling us to not just adventure outdoors in the world
but, for a time, to LIVE in it, with all of its buginess, draftiness, and
sogginess and to celebrate and experience everything that it provides for us.
So whatever your tradition, celebrate the turning of the
season. Go to the farmer’s market and celebrate the earth (and the farmers!)
that has yet again provided for you this year, cook good food, and maybe eat it
outside. The rabbis never prohibited rain jackets.- Karin Frank
Outreach Coordinator at Washington Interfaith Power & Light
* Leviticus 23:40, Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures published
by the Jewish Publication Society.
