42 | OCTOBER 5 • 2023 J
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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