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How do we rejoice?
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he High Holy Days with all
their solemnity and seri-
ousness are over, and we
now find ourselves cele-
brating the most joyous festival
in Jewish calendar, the holiday
of Sukkot — Zeman Simhateinu
— the festival of our rejoicing.
How do we rejoice and express
our gratitude to God for the many
blessings which He grants us?
The Torah mandates the way:
"U'lekahtem lahem ... pri etz
hadar ..." and you shall take unto
yourselves the fruit of a goodly
tree" (Leviticus 23:40).We express
our joy by taking a fruit called
and etrog in our hands and then
together with the lulav waving it
in all directions as an acknowl-
edgment of God's sovereignty
over the entire world.
The etrog is indeed a lovely
fruit, attractive in appearance
and possessing a fragrant aroma.
But if we look to our rabbinic lit-
erature we are amazed to learn
that the etrog did not always en-
joy such an exalted status.
One of the Midrashic rabbis
tells us: "The forbidden fruit
which Adam and Eve ate in defi-
ance of God's command was the
etrog" (Bereshit Rabba 15). A car-
ful examination of Scripture
yields no reference to the nature
of the fruit of the Tree of Knowl-
edge. And yet our rabbis identi-
fy the fruit which brought about
Adam's downfall as the beautiful
etrog, on which we spare no ex-
pense, which we handle so gen-
tly and respectfully and on which
we recite blessings during this
joyous festival.
What an amazing paradox we
have here! Because of the etrog,
Adam and Eve were driven from
the Garden of Eden. Because of
this fruit, they were cursed with
a life of toil, struggle and pain.
And yet this is the fruit chosen
by the Torah to express our joy
on this festival. The etrog, which
was the cause of our downfall, is
to be the means of our rejoicing.
This strange paradox, howev-
er, reflects an aspect of the ba-
sic personality of the Jew. If you
want to know how Jews were
able to survive so many calami-
ties and disasters, look to the et-
rog. We survived because of our
innate ability to wring a blessing
our of a curse. It is Jewish to find
the benediction in the maledic-
tion, the good in the evil, the op-
porttinity in the catastrophe.
Morton Yolkut is rabbi of
Congregation B'nai David.
Jewish history is rich in ex-
amples of making the best out of
the worst and of finding the bless-
ing in the curse. The Temple and
its sacrificial service were de-
stroyed, so our ancestors devel-
oped prayer as the most sublime
form of religious expression. In
the Middle Ages the Jew was
made an outcast, imprisoned in
ghettos, forbidden to own land.
And so our ancestors cultivated
their minds instead of their land
and produced brilliant works of
scholarship and literature.
Almost 50 years ago, the
British government closed the
gates of Palestine to 100,000
refugee Jews, so we set about cre-
ating a State of Israel which to-
day serves 3.5 million free and
proud citizens of our faith. In-
deed, from the ashes of the Holo-
caust emerged the miracle of
Israel reborn.
Shabbat Choi
Hamoed Sukkot:
Exodus 33:12-34:26
Numbers 29:23-28
Ezekiel 38:18-39:16.
Misfortunes have their re-
deeming qualities, and they can
be found if we are prepared to
look for them. Death brings an
appreciation for life.Tragedy can
bring relatives closer together
and awaken dormant loves and
loyalties. Failure can spur one on
to success never dreamed of. In
the curse itself often lies the
seekdof blessing.
It has been noted that
Passover reminds us that we are
the only people who learned to
eat maror — bitterness — and re-
cite a blessing over it. Sukkot
goes one step further. It reminds
us that we are the only people
that can take an etrog and rejoice
with it.We are a people that has
always been able to wrest victo-
ry from defeat.
This is the secret of Jewish his-
tory, why we are here today.
From the etrog we have learned
the secret of survival. We sur-
vived because we were able to
transform catastrophes into reli-
gious observances, defeats into
victories and above all, curses into
blessings.EI