Jewish Musings Tuesday, Oct. 3

[hollygail]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[hollygail]

As I mentioned yesterday, I found an article on myjewishlearning.com reprinted from a book, Every Person's Guide to Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchah Torah written by Rabbi Ronald H. Isaacs and published by Jason Aronson, Inc. The article is titled "The Meaning of the Sukkah and gives ten interpretations from many centuries of Jewish thought. Here are the next two.

3. A person must leave his/her permanent home and move into a temporary abode that is devoid of wealth and security to remind him/her that s/he depends on God Menoral haMaor (translation: The Lamp of Illumination, a 14th-century work by Rabbi Yisrael Alnaqua).
4. The sukkah is built after Yom Kippur. God sits in judgment on Rosh haShanah. On Yom Kikppur, God seals the verdict. If people were sentenced to go into exile, they built a sukkah in which to dwell and thus are exiled from their homes to the sukkah. According to this interpretation, God deems it as if they had gone into exile to Babylonia. Thus, the sukkah is symbolic of Jewish wandering and homelessness. (Pesikta d'Rav Kahana 28)

Two more ideas from later centuries than yesterday's two. And yes, tomorrow's will be from later centuries still until we get to Friday and the current day's writings.

So, what's your take on either/both of these interpretations? And on any day (or several days), please feel free to give your own interpretations of the sukkah or possible reasons for "dwelling" in one, whether you define "to dwell" as merely sitting (the minimum requirement) or actually living out of one for the entire week or anything in between.

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE!

Re today's topic: I feel very fortunate to be settled in the USA. When I was in my 20's, I travelled and worked my way around the country, sometimes in some pretty sketchy situations and areas. I definitely can relate to the writings about Jewish wandering and even homelessness.

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[peachymom1]

I would like to have the experience sometime of having my own sukkah and trying to live in it for the week. Or at least spend the night in it. That's not likely to happen, but you never know. :+)

On the news this morning, they said it's expected to be very hot this Saturday. I started laughing, because we'll be praying for rain that day.

[louise]

It all still comes back to fragility for me and ways to remind ourselves of our fragility.

I was supposed to have lunch in a friend's sukkah yesterday. We did have a lovely lunch, but the sukkah had been destroyed by wind. I'm sure the fragility lesson would hve been brought into sharper focus if we were sleeping in the sukkah. Our consequences were small since we still had a delicious meal out on a lovely deck in perfect weather. Now that I think about it I think we could have done a little meditation on that yesterday. We were completely focused on having a good time and minimizing the loss of the sukkah for the sake of our host. There was a spiritual/learning opportunity that we didn't think to take. Tonight we are having dinner in our synagogue sukkah (our shabbat plan having been rained out) and some of the same people will be there. Thinking of tossing out some conversation about this over dinner this evening.