Be Happy! Delivered Shabbat/Sukkot morning, October 3, 2009/15 Tishre 5770

Shabbat/Sukkot 1, 15 Tishrei 5770
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This special portion for the holiday of Sukkot, a passage from parashat Emor, details what we are supposed to do. The requirements are outlined clearly:

• On the first day and the last day, don’t go to work; it is a sacred day that demands complete rest. That’s clear, no? Whether we choose to honor that commandment, well that’s another story, but the expectation is clearly stated for us to understand: these days are to be set aside as distinct and deserving of שבתון.

• For 7 days, bring offerings: meal offerings, burnt offerings, sacrifices, etc. to God. Okay - an instruction that at first glance seems no longer relevant -- we worship, thankfully, in an entirely different manner today; but, in the context of the biblical period, it is clear what was expected: a public expression of worship and appreciation for this specific holiday, separate from anything else.

• We are commanded to gather together the 4 species: פרי עץ הדר, כפת תמרים, ענף עץ עבת, & ערבי נחל, together known as the lulav and etrog. No explanation is given here in this particular passage, but it is a tangible and clear instruction nonetheless.

• We are commanded to live in booths, in sukkot during the holiday - not only a tangible task, but one with a reason offered namely to remind us that the Israelites lived in temporary dwellings after they were redeemed from Egypt.

There is one last commandment offered in this festival passage that our Bar Mitzvah will recite in just a few moments:
ושמחתם לפני יהוה ואלהיכם שבעת ימים.- “You shall rejoice before Adonai your God seven days.”

Many of us, particularly the adults in the kahal (Oliver & his friends perhaps may be to young) may be familiar with the Bobby McFerrin song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” This now old song pops into my head every time I read this passage. ושמחתם - it’s not a suggestion rather our text is clear: וחגתם אתו חג ליהוה שבעת ימים בשנה חקת עולם לדרתיכם....(ויקרא כג) - “you shall make it a festival to Adonai - to God for 7 days a year; it is a chok, a law for all time throughout your generations”, in other words, forever. Again, this isn’t a recommendation or a suggestion, this is a command: “You, be happy! And be so for 7 days”. Moreover - and here’s the catch- rejoice while outside in the sukkah, that fragile incomplete shelter that is susceptible to wind and rain and that has little room for any material belongings.

On Thursday of this week, China celebrated the milestone of their nation’s 60th anniversary, a celebration that stands in stark contrast to the expectation of this command. Based on reports in the paper, this anniversary was marked with the kind of pomp, materialistic display, military bravado, and rejoicing that one might expect at such a celebration - especially for this country which is proud of and eager to revel in its growing position as a world power. It is easy to rejoice and celebrate in our material achievements. The timing of this nationalistic display, though, can serve to remind us of the very different intent of our biblical command, ושמחתם, to rejoice.

Sukkot requires that we rejoice despite our being out in the most simple and fragile of settings separated from those very material things that we think give us security or power. We are expected - we again are commanded - to rejoice in the simplest of pleasures: inviting guests and sharing a meal not in our elaborate redesigned 21st century kitchens with its granite counter tops and stainless appliances, but in our fragile and often less than comfortable sukkahs accessorized with perhaps a picnic table and folding chairs, but hopefully filled with people.

It is nice to have things. It is nice to surround ourselves with all of the comforts of modernity and the excesses of American consumerism; yet it is all too easy to allow ourselves to mistakenly equate these material and tangible things and structures in our lives with security and protection from our own human frailties and the reality of our mortality.

Sukkot with its seemingly paradoxical focus on the temporary and shaky sukkah and the simultaneous commandment of s’machtem, of rejoicing, reminds us that not only can we not escape insecurity of the human condition, but that we must find a way to celebrate and rejoice in our lives, in our humanity, despite it.