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Succot Holiday Brings
Jews Back To Nature
RABBI RICHARD C. HERTZ
Special to the Jewish News
g
ive days after Yom Kip-
pur, the holiest day in
the Jewish religious
an
begins
calandar,
altogether different kind of
holiday, the Festival of Suc-
cot. It is a holiday that makes
us conscious of nature and
the world we live in. In that
sense, Succot is our ecology
festival.
Succot
Historically,
represented the ingathering
of the harvest during biblical
times and thus gave an
agricultural emphasis to the
festival. Over the centuries
the festival served as an eter-
nal reminder of the time when
our ancestors wandered in the
vast wilderness of Sinai on
their way to freedom and in-
dependent nationhood. The
Bible instructs us to "dwell in
The palm
represents those
who know the
Torah but do not
practice it
booths seven days that your
generation may know that I
made the children of Israel to
dwell in booths when I
brought them out of the land
of Egypt."
As Jews evolved in the
Diaspora from farmers to ci-
ty dwellers, the celebration of
Succot became increasingly a
time to remember another era
and the world of nature from
which our people had become
so insulated. Not many Jews
in America go back to the
farm today or till the soil.
Still, we must be grateful for
those • who make the good
earth bloom and blossom.
The sysmbols of Succot--
the succah (the frail booth),
the lulav and etrot (the palm
and citron)--remind us of
God's bounty and man's rela-
tionship to the world of
nature. The building of the
succah also symbolizes the
transitory quality of life. The
succah serves as a reminder
to Jews that material things
have little permanence. The
prevailing spirit of this holi-
day is joyousness and
gratitude for the blessings
granted us by a generous
God. Succot is not only a
reminder of God's help in
ages past but also a guide for
Dr. Hertz is rabbi emeritus of
Temple Beth El.
the proper appreciation of the
present and future.
Succot, our ecology
festival. becomes an impor-
tant reminder for people to-
day. The festival's lesson
teaches that man must have
confidence not on his own
strength nor his own fortune,
but must place his faith in
Divine Providence. The
festival rewards those who
enter the succah with a sense
of deep and abiding
tranquility.
Yet, in an age when we
should be thankful for so
much because we have so
much, it is hard to see the
wastefulness we have today.
We have good food but we
ruin it with chemical sprays
in the fields.
We have an abundant supp-
ly of drinking water, but we
make it dangerous to drink by
dumping industrial sludge in-
to our streams.
We can be joyful for clear
blue skies, but not when we
choke on smog and inhale an
over-abundance of auto emis-
sions and diesel fuels.
We can look at our succot
without fear of persecution
from speaking out against
leaders we disagree with,
without fear of being im-
prisoned or punished because
of our religion. Soviet Jews
have not been able to practice
openly the religion of our
forefathers for generations.
Yet today, many of them
stand up and are willing to
speak out and fight for their
religious freedom. They are
labelled and libeled as
"dissidents".
Sometimes I wonder how
much we would be able to
sacrifice for our Jewish iden-
tity. the Israelis who defend-
ed their freedom with their
blood have given us Jews in
the Diaspora something to be
proud of--a dignity and iden-
tity that we usually take for
granted. Would we Jews in
America sacrifice the way our
brothers in Israel have done
for 40 years?
Succot is a time of
thanksgiving that dates back
to an ancient agricultural
festival. The rabbis tell us
that the lulav, which is made
up of palm, willow and myr-
tle branches, and the etrog, all
represent four types of grow-
ing things. We point the lulav
to four points of the compass
as well as upwards and
downwards, in order to sym-
bolize that God is
everywhere. When we point it
downwards we think of all the
things that come from the
soil.
Other interpretations of the
four parts of the lulav and
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