The Sanctity of the Land
Apr 30, 1994 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Emor | Pesah | Shavuot | Sukkot
At the new Jewish Museum one can feast on the panorama of Jewish history in a single spectacular, permanent exhibition, subtly conceived and brilliantly executed. It opens with a replica of an ancient agrarian calendar found in 1908 at Gezer, northwest of Jerusalem in the Shefela region. Written in good biblical Hebrew, the calendar seems to date from the 10th century B.C.E., coinciding with the reign of Solomon, when Gezer became part of the expanding monarchy of Israel. The calendar may not be anything more than a mnemonic ditty for children, and yet it is a cultural artifact of rich significance.
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The Pursuit of Peace
Jul 2, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pinehas | Sukkot
Experience often has a way of eroding our ideals. While the evidence for this sad fact abounds, I wish to illustrate it anew in the exegetical fate of a passage in this week’s parasha. The parasha concludes with a succinct statement of the sacrifices to be offered in the Tabernacle throughout the year.
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Sukkot-A Festival of Water
Oct 2, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
The joy of Sukkot is offset by a pervasive concern about water. As we give thanks for the harvest just completed, we begin to worry about the bounty of the next one. But be mindful: it is the rainfall in Israel of which we speak.
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The Religious Value of Joy
Sep 24, 1999 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
Sukkot at the Seminary is the loveliest of festivals. Rabbinical students are back from their high holiday jobs. The tension of officiating for the first or second time has dissipated and the gravity of the season lifted. Joined in community, we fill the synagogue with the songs of Hallel and the pageantry of the Lulav. A feeling of thanksgiving is in the air. Together we take our meals in the richly decorated Sukkot in the quadrangle which invigorate our sense of the natural world. Conversation, singing and a bit of Torah from an invited speaker enhance this fare.
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The Seventy Bulls of Sukkot
Oct 14, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
Sukkot is the most joyous and universal of the three harvest festivals ordained by the Torah. It marks the end of the agricultural year as well as the summer harvest, and we are explicitly instructed by the Torah to rejoice with our family and community (Deuteronomy 16:17). In that spirit, the Rabbis turned the common noun, hag (festival), into the proper name of the holiday, he-Hag (the festival par excellence). They also designated Sukkot as “the season of our joy” in the prayers for the festival.
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Ritual in Our Lives
Sep 20, 2002 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
When I was a youngster growing up in small-town America in the 1940s, the only sukkah in town stood behind the synagogue. It did service for the entire congregation. Even my father, the rabbi of our Conservative synagogue and devoutly observant, never seemed to entertain the idea of putting up a sukkah in our backyard. In those days, people had less time for domestic rituals and shied away from any public display of their Jewishness. The synagogue in Pottstown, a large, handsome, basilican structure on the main street, had become the last arena of individual and collective Jewish expression.
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What Is a Sukkah, Really?
Sep 30, 2004 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Sukkot
During the festival of Sukkot in 1974, while on sabbatical in Israel, the Schorsch family took a trip to Sharm El Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.
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Connecting Pesah with Sukkot
Oct 10, 2003 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Pesah | Sukkot
The parallelism between Sukkot and Pesach is striking. The Torah scripts them to start on the fifteenth day of the month when the moon is full and to last for seven days. Originally agricultural festivals, their historical overlay links them both to the redemption from Egypt. In each case, the name of the festival derives from the ritual which is its most prominent feature. In tandem, the two anchor the changing of the seasons in the fall and the spring (the two times of year when the seasons actually change in the Middle East) in the biblical calendar. They are the axis on which that calendar turns.
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