The Package Deal

The sukkah is intended to remind us of when we were taken out of Egypt. The children of Israel were grandiosely rescued from a despotic, tyrannical Pharaoh who had greedily enslaved them for generations before finally, in fits of paranoid fear, murdering all their male offspring. Chased by the Pahaoh's troops they were led triumphantly from the country through a path in a sea miraculously split before them. Once they had passed, the waters tumbled back in over the Egyptian army, eliminating it in its entirety in one glorious, fell swoop. The soldier's spoils, financed entirely by the labours of those they had been chasing, moreover, did not sink into the deep with them but were washed up on the shores for the refugees to gather.

To celebrate these awe-inspiring miracles we gather once a year in a temporary structure, symbolic of the supernatural protection and care we received then and over the years following that awesome rescue and a testament to the pillars of cloud and fire that surrounded the Israelites as they trod the desert toward their Promised Land. That the Israelites, even despite these obvious displays of raw, divine might, hardly behaved like the best of Catholics and His eternal patience with them, must be an integral part of that story.

There is nothing glorious about the sukkahs I saw this year on the Hill and nothing that even remotely evokes the dazzling magnificence of that divine deliverance. A ‘temporary structure’ as basically defined by the law has ‘to have three or more walls and get protective shading from an unconverted vegetable source. We have laws stating how high or law the walls must be but only the roof of the structure has to be temporary. A kosher sukkah must be under the open sky and then be covered by raw vegetable matter.

Like much in our society, Sukkot has become an occasion that has little to do with its original purpose. Proud sukkah owners today proudly show off how discreetly their sukkah blends in to the house as their comfortably centrally heated and air-conditioned sukkah-cum-morning room’s glass dome slides noiselessly away to reveal the open sky masked by the commercially available, perfectly stitched bamboo mat that once a year is rolled over the waiting beams to fulfil the letter, if not the spirit, of the laws.

In a grotesque parade of bad taste, most sukkot are furthermore decorated with gaudy and tacky christmas decorations, from paper apples, shiny stars and baubles to paper chains, tinsel and flashing fairy lights. Like the society around us, we seem to be intent on proving that we too can sell the soul of our traditions to Hong Kong.

The Rosh Hashana-Yom Kippur period is designed to be a time for stocktaking, learning the lessons from the year past and accepting resolutions for the one upcoming. Over Sukkot we are reminded that though we can be a stiff-necked people God still loves us and He is capable of protecting us from any threat. We learn that although we as a people can be prone to bouts of self-assured rightness these can also be suspect. We learn that we have a tendency to be argumentative and sometimes just plain obnoxious and that we have to learn to fight these urges. In short we have to remember that being religious is about more than the external trappings.

When the length of someone’s beard or his wife’s skirt becomes more important than his piety or deeds, when the shape of a Chassid's hat becomes more important than his upbringing and knowledge, when in shul you can be witness to infantile jealous bickering for the privilege of shushing people during the davening and those whose job it is to represent us seem to be more intent on furthering their own agenda, when eating kosher becomes about whose supervision you support rather than what's inside the package (or should be) one starts to wonder how much more of our religion has become just a tackily decorated temporary structure.

Us Limeys

We did what was expected, we smiled and begged forgiveness. Of course none of us asked for forgiveness from our enemies; what could be more crass than putting someone on the spot like that? But we did politely beg all our best friends’ pardon and added at least one ‘surprising’ choice just to prove how very good we're being. So when we stepped up to Kol Nidre, feeling almost proud of our humility, we shed our genuine tears with saintly servility.

No matter that some family of sods sitting further back near the door happen to be watching their lives go down the toilet. “Who knew better than me how they had it coming to them? After all if they had listened to me in the first place they would never have been in this ‘shtuch’. If they would have asked my advice they would have done the right thing in the beginning and none of all this would have happened. But they had to be clever. They have to do things their own way. Nu! They did it their own way, so now we ordinary folks can shrug our shoulder and say “Sorry Mate, yer own bleedin fault!” and then turn back to our humble haughteur.

“Oh and just look at those Plimsolls on that child. If my children went out in shoes like that I’d… Something really should be done about that father. He seems to have a child every year and he doesn’t earn enough to buy shoes for them. Actually I should speak to Whatshisname about that. We should be thinking about paying him more. He will leave him Ch”V and it will cost us a whole lot more. Anyway, the kids need to have shoes.
Hey, what am I doing? Thinking business again, I am supposed to be thinking of tshuve”. The mind shifts back into its puritan pride.

It’s true that we don’t all have management positions or the power enough to hurt others directly. Those of us who don’t, often don’t have the ability to help those who got hurt either. But we, all of us, know we are ignoring something. We all know there is a little something that really should be done… Kol Nidre does not absolve us of that. You cannot be sitting in the same building as another whom you know to be crying out for help and ignore their call while you beg for yourself.
“Still, I do believe I did rather a lot of good this year and though I will, of course, show just the right amount of genuine remorse over the course of the coming day I don’t really feel He has any reason to show anything more than a token resistance before awarding me the full set of social benefits as befits a person of my rank.” You consider to yourself in your reasonable righteousness.

“Anyway, it’s good that that I managed to avoid ‘him there’ when he was doing the rounds of his forgiveness. Imagine if we had suddenly met face to face? Actually I am a bit surprised he feels happy going to Kol Nidre without having my forgiveness. Some people have a nerve! In his place I would never contemplate going towards Yom Kippur without having even tried to get my forgiveness. I wouldn’t give it of course. How could I? It would be like saying he was right all along. I couldn’t even! It would be like stabbing my own family in the back. I don’t even think He would want such forgiveness. But he should have asked. Shoyn, we can’t all be menschen. I have to continue with my complacent complaint."

And to think they say we have to learn to integrate!

Begging My Pardon

I nurse a very special bit of my disdain for my whoever came up with the idea of buying an Aliya for someone you want to appease. I can think of no more cynical a way of mending bridges with someone than buying something for them, in public, that they then have to come over to thank you for.

A Jew and a goy were once walking down a dark alley at night when they saw an evil looking character coming towards them. Petrified and convinced they were about to be mugged the Jew turned to his friend and said ‘let me give you that ten quid I owe you.’

Yom Kippur is the traditional time for begging forgiveness from all those you might have offended through the year. In this period we are reminded, by all and sundry, to get the forgiveness of our friends before we ask that of God. I must say though that God, in his infinite mercy and his well documented wish to spread forgiveness far wide, might be happy to hand it out at the drop of a hat. I am no God. My mercies are spread somewhat thinner and I do not feel inclined to be forgiving to the scroungers who wait until my moment of weakness, just before Kol Nidre, to come to ask for it.

It is not that I am not inclined to forgive anybody who might have slighted me. I do however expect those who want my forgiveness to really want it. Leaving it to the very last moment causes me at best to question the asker’s sincerity. I do admit that I too have on occasion felt pangs of remorse over some vestiges of bitterness that have accumulated over the year and have even at times had the inclination to go over to some in an attempt to pave the way to a better understanding for the future. I then have to weigh the advantages of getting my quick fix of sanctimonious glow versus the knowledge that whoever is on the receiving end of my magnanimity is probably feeling a lot like the goy in the alley.

So you guys out there who think you know who I am, learn this; If you do feel like appeasing me don’t come crawling before Kol Nidre because I will not reply. Just so that you don’t think I’m being unreasonable however, I will accept an Aliya on Yom Kippur as the best alternative in the circumstances.

Wishing you all a Gmar Tov and a very happy new year.

From the mouths of babes

I was brought up as a Chassid, in a home where contact with anyone less than ultra-orthodox was well nigh limited to decorators and storekeepers. Until my barmitzva I believed that anyone who shaved their beard or wore fashionable clothes was destined eventually to spend eternity in hell, unless they could be gotten off in the heavenly court with the Tinuk shenisba excuse (our equivalent of ‘They know not what they do’).

Since I rebelled at a certain age I have changed my own opinion somewhat and my perception of both Chassidim and the more liberal-minded has gone through several metamorphoses. I have discovered that many a deeply religious fervour can lie hidden behind a highly assimilated exterior and, as those many less religious people at work who used to call me Rabbi have learned, there can lurk a disturbing void behind the beard, big hat and dark coat too.

This week the Slichot dragged me out of bed at 5:30 in the morning at the annual start of a calculated and highly effective routine of ever more intense traditions and symbolic ceremonies designed to set the stage for my ultimate showdown in Shul Rosh-Hashana. The accumulated guilt of the entire year gradually comes to the fore to climax as I find myself standing before my maker waiting for the shofar to blow, feeling an abject failure unworthy even to ask Him for the things I need.

I was thus pleased to be humbled this weekend by a woman whom I had hitherto regarded as completely devoid of religious sentiment. We were discussing Rosh Hashana and I could not resist asking what she felt coming to Shul for the first of two annual visits and whether she did not feel like an impostor arriving at the party of a host who had been callously ignored all year. “No,” she said “I don’t feel that way at all. I see Rosh Hashana as a celebration of God’s reign. I don’t feel bad celebrating the Royal Birthday just because I haven’t thought about the queen once all year and I don’t think Americans who avoided the draft feel foolish celebrating the fourth of July. God says I belong and if I belong I can celebrate. If God loves me, as everyone assures me He does, then He will be happy to see me at least once.”

In this coming year, that by all indications will be the one when we finally acknowledge that the western world is at war with Muslim fundamentalism, I believe we Jews will once again find ourselves united before a common enemy. There is a belief among some that we the Chassidim have more in common with the fundamentalists than the assimilated Jew. To certain extent this is true were it not for our passionate belief that every one of God’s creations is worthy of his compassion, and certainly ours no less. I am grateful to her for showing me that side of our religion and reviving in me the chutzpah to beg for Him for a peaceful year.