42 | OCTOBER 5 • 2023 J
N
S
ukkot represents more
clearly than any other
festival the duali-
ties of Judaism. The Four
Species (lulav, etrog, hadas-
sim and aravot) are a symbol
of the Land of Israel, while
the sukkah reminds us of
exile. The Four Species are a
ritual of rain,
while eating
in the sukkah
depends on
the absence of
rain. Above all,
though, there
is the tension
between the
universality of nature and the
particularity of history. There
is an aspect of Sukkot — rain-
fall, harvest, climate — to
which everyone can relate,
but there is another — the
long journey through the
wilderness — that speaks to
the unique experience of the
Jewish people.
This tension between the
universal and the particular
is unique to Judaism. The
God of Israel is the God of
all humanity, but the religion
of Israel is not the religion of
all humanity. It is conspicu-
ous that while the other two
Abrahamic monotheisms,
Christianity and Islam, bor-
rowed much from Judaism,
they did not borrow this.
They became universalist
faiths, believing that everyone
ought to embrace the one true
religion, their own, and that
those who do not are denied
the blessings of eternity.
Judaism disagrees. For this
it was derided for many cen-
turies and, to some degree,
it still is today. Why, if it
represents religious truth,
is it not to be shared with
everyone? If there is only one
God, why is there not only
one way to salvation? There is
no doubt that if Judaism had
become an evangelizing, con-
version-driven religion — as
it would have had to, had it
believed in universalism —
there would be many more
Jews than there are today.
Judaism is the road less
traveled because it represents
a complex truth that could
not be expressed in any other
way. The Torah tells a simple
story. God gave humans the
gift of freedom, which they
then used not to enhance cre-
ation but to endanger it.
Adam and Chavah broke
the first prohibition. Cain,
the first human child, became
the first murderer. Within
a remarkably short space of
time, all flesh had corrupted
its way on Earth, the world
was filled with violence, and
only one man, Noach, found
favor in God’s eyes. After the
Flood, God made a covenant
with Noach, and through him
with all humanity, but after
the hubris of the builders
of the Tower of Babel, God
chose another way.
Having established a basic
threshold in the form of the
Noachide Laws, He then
chose one man, one family
and eventually one nation to
become a living example of
what it is to exist closely and
continuously in the presence
of God.
There are, in the affairs of
humankind, universal laws
and specific examples. The
Noachide covenant constitutes
the universal laws. The way
of life of Avraham and his
descendants is the example.
What this means in Judaism
is that the righteous of all the
nations have a share in the
World to Come (Sanhedrin
105a). In contemporary
terms, it means that our com-
mon humanity precedes our
religious differences. It also
means that by creating all
humans in His image, God
set us the challenge of seeing
His image in one who is not
in our image: whose color,
culture, class and creed are
different from our own. The
ultimate spiritual challenge is
to see the trace of God in the
face of a stranger.
Zechariah, in the vision
we read as the Haftarah for
the first day of Sukkot, puts
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
What Shemini Atzeret
and Simchat Torah
Teach Us Today
COURTESY OF CHABAD.ORG