Shabbat Sukkot, 2021/5782
Do you have a “pet name” that someone calls you that is such an intimate and knowing name, that it moves your heart just to hear it called? Every once in awhile, one of my kids calls me “Mama” instead of Mom, and it brings me back to that pure toddler love. In my dreams, my Grandpa z”l” calls me zeiss leben sweet heart in Yiddish, and I am a beloved child again. The intimate knowing of names means love, and is a them in the verses read from Torah this Shabbat, one of the links to Sukkot! The verses read on Shabbat chol ha-moed Shabbat are from Exodus 33-34. In the aftermath of the Golden calf, Moshe shatters the tablets of the First set of Tablets. It is an utter failure all around. These events are said to happen on Tisha B’av. Only when Moshe ascends the mountain a second time, on Elul first, does he have the chutzpa to ask to know G*d more deeply please, “let me see your presence!” The Goodness of the Holy One passes before Moshe, who is shielded with the palm of the Divine hand itself.
It is the story of second chances, with far more yearning and depth than any rookie try, for Moshe, G*d and the People, a new covenant Brit, 2.0 will replace the Sinai covenant, which had nothing to say about forgiveness! No terrifying smoke and fire for this second covenant, rather vision, intimate knowing, and after failure that there can be forgiveness.
The verses include the 13 attributes that we sing so many times about G*d’s forgiveness during the Holy Days are found here, and Moshe brings down the second set of tablets on Yom Kippur, BUT what is the Sukkot connection?
I found three theme words in the first SEVEN verses read this shabbat relating to Sukkot: Vision, Intimate knowing and Shielding. The first, Ra-ah is repeated 7 times in 7 verses. Seven is the number of completion and rest. Ra-ah refers to vision, the root of the word “to see”. For Sukkot, there is no hiding from the stars, rather there is vision of the sky, the ancestors, of eternity. The second theme word is Yada – to know intimately, as Moshe and the Holy One know one another’s names. and certainly sukkot as an experience is an intimate knowing of nature and thus for many, of G*d. When people lose this intimate touch, our love for nature wanes. This is dangerous, for we only protect what we love. This occurred only six times, but was so strongly reminiscent of psalm 91, where G*d protects those all who know the name of the Holy one. Adding this verse takes the intimate name knowing beyond Moshe to us, and perhaps is needed to stretch to seven, to completeness! One final and unexpected connection is in a hyperlink from the parashah to Sukkot in Exodus 33:22 v’sachoti chapi “and I will shield you with My Hand. The shield “sachoti” is from the same root as the Schach (thatch) on the Sukkah! Blew my mind! The chaf – which means palm, is related to the word kippur as G*d wipes away our mistakes.
During sukkot we gain vision, an intimate knowing, and we trust in the flimsy Schach, because it is as the hand of G*d shielding us. B’zot ani Boteach! In this I trust!
Dr Lara Lars Doan, (University of Windsor) wrote regarding Sukkot services: “This morning I felt immersed in blessings and a (virtual) mikveh of flowing joy, of welcoming community, of being genuinely seen, davening alone-together… and I left with the calls to tap into lived vulnerabilities and fragilities not as personal failings, to sit with them in the Sukkah in my heart knowing I do so not alone; charting moments of daily gratitude, and taking time to see the stars.”
Sources
Miryam's Space 