Sacrosanct And Secular
By: Yochanan Gordon
By Yochanan Gordon
How was this Sukkos different than all other Sukkos holidays? Wait! Pesach is the holiday that highlights distinctions, where we do things extraordinarily in order to arouse the curiosity of the Seder participants. But what does that have to do with Sukkos?
The truth is, Chazal draw a simile between the 15th of Nissan and the 15th of Tishrei to the point where some say that the first kezayis of challah on Sukkos needs to be without anything, even honey, similar to the first kezayis of matzah. So although Sukkos and Pesach are essentially different, still at their core there is an inextricable similarity which binds them.
On the topic of distinctions, there was something very different about this Sukkos than all others previously in my life. This year our family celebrated Sukkos in the Holy Land. In fact, we were there from erevYom Kippur through Shabbos Bereishis, a trip which for all intents and purposes was scheduled a year ago when we booked our airfare.
There’s a lot to write about but suffice it to say that there’s something cosmic in nature to everything that occurs in Eretz Yisrael. I believe that is at the heart of the statements of our sages regarding the qualitative exponentialism to the land of Israel versus the diaspora. The Gemara towards the end of Kesubos discussing the reverence that certain Amoraim would accord to the land of Israel upon stepping on its soil, similarly mentions the qualitative difference with regards to the size of grapes in the land of Israel during the messianic era and the fact that barren trees will bear fruit. I always wondered what the practical message in this teaching was. It occurred to me that the presence of the Shechina upon the land of Israel created a reality wherein every step, every encounter or interaction holds cosmic significance. So a grape in chutz la’aretz is just a grape; but in Eretz Yisrael it’s much more than just a grape. As such, everything that went on here over the past nearly three weeks needs to be processed in order to be reported or analyzed.
My grandfather serialized his experiences of his first trip to Israel in the summer of the early 1960s into a book called Old and New in Israel, which was translated and republished in these pages over the last while. Another book can certainly be written about our first three-week trip to the Holy Land but much of our experiences need to be thought through.
Therefore, I decided for now to begin with the end of the trip, which is perhaps the biggest novelty of this Sukkos from all the previous ones and that is the fact that we kept one day of yom tov this year. In consultation with my rav I was told that the shittah of the Alter Rebbe is to follow the minhag of the makom when it comes to yom tov sheini and since Israelis don’t hold of yom tov sheini, which is a construct of the uncertainty of exile, it doesn’t apply in Eretz Yisrael. Having said that, the Alter Rebbe reportedly sought to change three things but admitted that he was unable to effect the change, one of which was instituting a second day of yom tov in Eretz Yisrael for bnei Eretz Yisrael.
For the sake of the Lubavitchers who might be reading this, it’s only right to mention that the Rebbe’s shittah with regards to how to act regarding yom tov sheini in Eretz Yisrael was more complicated and less clear cut. The Rebbe instructed people routinely to consult a rabbi in Eretz Yisrael and other times he explicitly called for observing two days in Eretz Yisrael. So although the word on the street is that Chabad keeps one day and although we in fact followed that ruling, it’s much more nuanced than that.
While it was weird acting chol hamoed’ik while the many other Americans were walking the streets in their yom tov attire; the distinctions are much more pronounced on the second days when Americans are holding Hakafos and we were in a room over, wearing tefillin and davening a weekday davening,
This thought hit me this morning, as I was putting on my tefillin while hearing the yom tov liturgy being chanted in the other room at the Lutzk Beis Haknesses. The thought was that there is something messianic about the confluence of sanctity and secularism. As we are getting ready to read Parshas Bereishis the Chazal Ohr v’choshech mishtamshem b’irbuvia should be familiar to us. It’s the notion that until G-d established day and night the two opposing forces were intermingled as one.
We are so used to creating distinctions. Just hours before, with the conclusion of yom tov in Eretz Yisrael, we made Havdalah, which says he who separates between sanctity and secularism, between light and darkness, and between the Jewish people and the nations of the world. However, prior to the establishment of these distinctions there was interinclusion between opposing forces within creation itself.
We chanted dozens of times throughout Elul, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur the words, “For my house is a house of prayer for all nations.” In fact, with the coming of Moshiach the job of Moshiach will be to teach Torah to the goyim in addition to his role with regards to the Yidden. So although we are accustomed to distinctions during our exilic lives it seems like the genesis of creation and the pinnacle of history with the coming of Moshiach will be one of interinclusion rather than distinction.
On that note there was something messianic about the confluence of the yom tov and weekday conduct. The signature of Divinity is manifest with the confluence of contradictions like light and darkness and sanctity and the secular because Divinity in its infinitude is capable of embracing both simultaneously.
Wishing one and all a strong and healthy winter period.
Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.
