After the ingathering from your threshing floor and your vat, you shall hold the Feast of Booths for seven days. You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son, and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow in your communities. You shall hold a festival for the Eternal, your God seven days, in the place that God shall choose; for the Eternal your God will bless all your crops, and all your undertakings, and you shall have nothing but joy. Deuteronomy 16:13-15
One can easily understand how our ancient ancestors, an agrarian society, would be jubilant upon completing the harvest season with granaries and vats filled to overflowing. Their celebration is palpable across the centuries. Into this moment of rejoicing the Torah reminds the celebrants that they must include the vulnerable members of society in the festivities. Only after doing so does the Torah promise Divine blessings upon the people’s endeavors and “nothing but joy”.
In a few days we will celebrate Shmini Atseret, what on the Hebrew calendar is the second anniversary of what we more routinely refer to as October 7. For the past two years, those kidnapped by Hamas and held captive in Gaza have been the most vulnerable members of our community, along with the surviving victims of the brutal attacks that day, and in concentric circles of suffering their families, all Israelis, and world Jewry. The reality of the past two years highlights the Torah’s insight that when we are incomplete as a people our joy is incomplete as well.
As we look forward to the concluding days of Festival, we do so with a measure of hopefulness that the surviving hostages will be back in Israel surrounding by their loved ones and receiving the care they require. Let us pray that this will begin to heal not just them but the rifts within Jewish communities which feel ragged and raw. May next year’s Shmini Atseret observance find us more connected to each other, more aware that we are all the most vulnerable in our society when we forget that we are responsible for and to each other.
With blessings for a joyous festival –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
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