Sukkos Day II, 5780
We have now been in Dallas, thank God, for four years, yet people still ask me on occasion what I have found to be the biggest adjustment in our relocation. Usually, they want to know my perspectives on Dallas Jewry and how different it is from the communities on Long Island whence we came. When I give the real answer, most people are taken aback, so here it is: The real challenge I’ve experienced, the really difficult adjustment, has been the weather. I’m not referring to the dragon’s nostrils that is called Summer in Dallas. No- for me, the most significant adjustment has been the weather on Sukkos. Permit me to read you the forecast for Rochester, New York for today:
Partly cloudy, High 55, Low 47.
This is rather warm for a late Sukkos Rochester. My childhood memories involve the crimson and gold hues of glorious fall foliage, crispy apples and down coats in the Sukkah, seeing our breath and eating hot stuffed cabbage. In fact, there were years in Rochester when it snowed!
Here is the weather forecast for Dallas:
Scattered showers, High 82, Low 63.
And that’s for a cold front! I haven’t experienced weather even remotely like this, lehavdil, since I had the privilege of spending Sukkos in Israel for two years when I was in Yeshiva. Most years here in Dallas, the weather has been in the mid to high 90s, with 50% humidity to boot. For reference, 50% humidity is the level maintained in Hot Yoga studios. And for some inexplicable reason, there are still fall foliage decorations being sold in Dallas, and pumpkin spice products available ad nauseum! Why do we persist in the mass delusion that there is a season called fall in this city?
In one part of the country, sitting in the Sukkah requires down coats and hot food. In another, it requires cool beverages and a fan or air conditioner. It is this discrepancy between the definitions of Sukkah discomfort that remains one of the biggest adjustments for me.
One of the great Chassidic masters, Rav Tzadok HaKohen Rabinowitz (1823-1900) shares a remarkable idea in his work Pri Tzaddik, in an essay on the holiday of Sukkos. Quoting the Pesikta and the yehi ratzon prayer we recite when sitting in the Sukkah, Rav Tzadok says that spending time outside in the temporary dwelling that is our Sukkah, exposed to the elements away from the creature comforts of our home, is meant to simulate the experience of exile. For those whose deeds last year necessitated a decree of exile for this one, the time we spend in the Sukkah should suffice.
Rav Tzadok points out that there is no way this can possibly work. Exile is supposed to evoke pain and separation. Albert Camus put it poignantly in “The Plague.”:
They came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose.
But if you look at the laws of the Sukkah, pain and discomfort is a reason to exempt a person from spending time in the Sukkah! Whether it is on account of blistering heat or bitter cold, sickness or suffering, our sages stated clearly- מצטער פטור מן הסוכה, one who experiences difficulty is exempt from the Sukkah. But if the Sukkah is meant to atone for sins requiring exile, no one should be exempt! After all, illness and discomfort weren’t deterrents from committing the sin that necessitated the punishment!
Rav Tzadok explains that the exile, the galus of the Sukkah is designed to simulate a very specific exile- the Baylonian exile. It was in the Baylonian exile that the transmission of Torah from teacher to student flourished, until the Rabbis committed it to writing to preserve it for posterity. It was in the Babylonian exile that the texts, concepts and debates that still represent the basis of Jewish law were formulated. It was in the Baylonian exile that many of the practices designed to strengthen observance were enacted by the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, the men of the great assembly. It was in the Babylonian exile that Yehoshua Ben Gamla developed a comprehensive system of Jewish education, so no child would be denied his Jewish heritage. And it was in the Babylonian exile that the first institutions of higher Jewish learning were developed- the yeshivot of Sura, Pumpedita and Nahardea. Indeed, this is the story of Jewish exile in general. Throughout our history of bitter persecution and relentless wandering, our exile has produced voluminous Torah scholarship from dozens of countries and thousands of communities across the globe, and Jewish movements that have changed the trajectory of Jewish history for the better. Our literary output has proven a rich vein of cultural gold, and our scientific contributions have changed the world. This is the kind of exile we are supposed to replicate through sitting in the Sukkah- a productive exile, tragic in origin yet glorious in outcome. Someone who is mitzta’er, who is afflicted, will only see the negative in the Sukkah and will look askance at its inhabitants as backward and irredeemable, failing to realize the growth potential a sojourn in the Sukkah carries. This is why the Mishnah Berurah writes that you should take whatever steps you can to make your Sukkah stay a comfortable one- whether putting in a fan or air conditioner or, as he was describing in Poland, wearing warm clothing. Mitzta’er– and the attitude it inheres- is something to be avoided as much as possible! Such people are exempt from the Sukkah, because they are not welcome there. One of the central assumptions in many streams of Zionist thought is known as Shlilat HaGalut, or negation of the diaspora. This school of thought has been used to deny the possibility of a rich Jewish life in the diaspora, and the value of the diaspora life that already took place. Early Zionist intellectuals like Yosef Haim Brenner and Micha Yosef Berdyczewski were its most vociferous proponents, and today, the mantle has been assumed by Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua. Brenner and Berdyczewski portrayed Disapora Jews in the Pale of Settlement as poor and panicky, defeated and deferential, slovenly and stupid, whose accomplishments were marginal and unworthy of celebration. There is a pejorative expression in modern Hebrew called “תרבות גלותית”, a diaspora culture or mindset, in which a personor a community thinks like a meek, servile and generally foreign Jew. The only way someone can think this way about the story of diaspora Jewry is if they, like so many of us, adopt a lachrymose approach to Jewish history. In this conception, we focus on the hardships and peregrinations we have had to endure, and not on the remarkable opportunities that hardship and exile created. After the attack on the shul in Halle on Yom Kippur, someone expressed to me their dismay that there are Jews living in Germany. After all, it’s a hell hole for Jews, isn’t it? Let’s leave aside the stunning arrogance inherent in writing off a community of 100,000+ Jews simply because we don’t approve of where they live. And let us brush past the troubling implication that Jews who live in places we deem dangerous are the architects of their own misfortune. This kind of talk betrays a shocking ignorance of Jewish history. Long before Germany was the epicenter of evil in the world, there was nearly a millennium of glorious Jewish life there. Much of our Ashkenazic liturgical and halachic practice originates from the works of the Rishonim who lived in the Rhineland. There were great Rabbis and halachic authorities who led Jewish communities throughout that time. The school of Torah im Derech Eretz originated in the writings and the community of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, and many secular Jewish scientists and intellectuals revolutionized the world on German soil. Is that something to be ignored because things went so indescribably bad later on?
Of course, a paean to the positives of the diaspora is not in any way meant to oppose aliyah, God forbid, which every Jew should seriously consider, certainly now that it is so much easier, and which affords us unique and essential Jewish opportunities we simply don’t have in the Diaspora. But seeing the blessing in our exile, and focusing on our historic triumphs in it, is essential if we wish to develop an accurate and balanced view of our collective Jewish story, and our individual story as well. It is easy to adopt a depressing approach to our lives, in which we dwell on the difficulties we are suffering or the challenges we have endured in the past. Rav Tzadok teaches us that it is easier, better and healthier to look positively upon our lives, searching for growth opportunities amidst adversity, and reflecting on the way we’ve been strengthened by past challenges. As we dwell within the sukkah, let us do so with a spirit of joy and understanding, so that the Sukkah will dwell within us, too.
shaarerabbi 