Posts Tagged ‘Jewish holidays’

Sukkot vs. Halloween

Friday, November 18th, 2016
by Sam Glaser
The month of October unleashes a tension of sorts in our predominantly Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood.  Nearly every house sports a gaily decorated sukkah, many placed on front lawns for all to see.  As one walks a bit farther from Pico Blvd, macabre Halloween decorations take over the facades of the local homes.   Jewish kids must grapple with a continuum of responses to trick-or-treating: for the far right, it’s as if the holiday doesn’t exist. Modern Orthodox might allow their kids to make the rounds on their street in search of kosher candy and haunted houses but downplay any outward signs of participation.  Sadly, Jews of other denominations are more likely to be carrying a light saber than a lulav.
I grew up loving Halloween and scarcely knew Sukkot existed.  For us Brentwood kids, Halloween had no religious connotation whatsoever.   Instead it was a night of after-hours fun when we normally would be stuck indoors doing homework.  We relished in the sense of mischief and mystery as we wandered the darkened streets, stopping at any given household when we needed another sugar fix.  As we grew older, All Hallows Eve became an excuse to party.  At the University of Colorado, Boulder or UC Santa Barbara, my brothers and I made certain that Halloween was an epic night to remember.  Since I garnered only positive associations with this American pastime, I allowed my kids to wander the neighborhood in search of candy.  We would then buy their treasure trove of sweets back from them so they wouldn’t destroy their teeth.  Better $10 for them than $1000 for the dentist.  Friends knew that I would happily accept a gift of a Corona when I arrived with my brood on erev Halloween.  My wife generally stayed home to supply the trick-or-treaters with chocolate and once in a while we’d hit an adult after hours party in our Purim costumes.  Sukkot occupies such a primal place in our family life that I didn’t worry about confusing priorities.
Some may argue that the two holidays occupy opposite ends of the spectrum.  Whereas Halloween features themes of death and evil, Sukkot celebrates life, the bounty of the harvest, the joy of God’s protective love.  I have found, however, that there are many similarities between our autumnal celebration and deathly commemorations in other cultures.  According to Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum, with whom I had the pleasure to learn on many occasions in the UK, the Chumash refers to this holiday as the Festival of Booths and Chag Ha’asif, the festival of the ingathering.  The annual harvest tribute implies that the last crops have been removed from the earth as it descends into the death-state of winter.  We see this word asif-ingathering several other times in the text, usually pertaining to the passing of our biblical heroes as they are “gathered to their people.”  Therefore if we substitute death for ingathering, Chag Ha’asif becomes the Festival of Death.  Whoa!  Furthermore, each night of Sukkot we welcome these blessed dead ancestors as Ushpizin or honored guests into our thatched hut.  Spooky, right?
Versions of our Sukkot harvest/mortality celebration are echoed in festivals around the world.  Samhain is of Gaelic origins and like Jewish holidays, it begins in the evening. This progenitor of Halloween results from the ancient Irish belief that this period is one when the boundary between this world and the next is most easily crossed.  Think of corridors in between states of reality in The Matrix, or as we learn in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), “This world is like a corridor before the world to come.” Mexico’s Day of the Dead is a multiday holiday around Halloween that allows folks to pray and remember family and friends and bless their spiritual journey.  Our Sukkot celebration ends with Sh’mini Atzeret during which we offer a Yahrzeit service to allow the congregation to do pretty much the same thing.  Pitru Paksha is a two-week holiday for Hindus that falls during the autumnal equinox.  Much like our Kaddish, the ritual is regarded as compulsory to ensure that the soul of the ancestor goes to heaven.
Perhaps the central connection with mortality on Sukkot is the nature of the schach that forms the sukkah’s roof.  It cannot be made from living vegetation, in other words, a leafy tree branch hovering over your sukkah that is still anchored to its roots renders it posul (invalid for use).  Schach must be adama, vegetation cut off from the ground, dead and disconnected.  One lesson we learn from this use of refuse to complete our sukkah: just like true teshuva can turn our mistakes into mitzvot, we take a waste product, put it on top of the walls of our sukkah and fulfill a mitzvah!  Adam, or mankind, comes from the same root as the vegetation, adama.  Both terms indicate origins from the earth.  Just like the schach must be dead, so too will we die, hopefully returning to the earth after one hundred-twenty wonderful years.   The vision of our sukkah’s schach renders us humble with a potent reminder of our fragility.  Halacha states that the schach cannot be layered so heavily that it occludes the view of the stars above.  In other words, while we have an awareness of our mortality, we can keep our eyes on the stars, on our eternity, or as Rabbi Leibele Eiger says, the aforementioned gift of living with permanent impermanence.
Further morbid connections with this holiday of joy: ironically, the “megilah” of this season is Kohelet (Ecclesiastes,) the morose tome authored by King Solomon in his old age.  This book suggests cheery concepts like: it is “better to attend a house of mourning rather than one of feasting,” “a time to be born, a time to die” and “the day of death is better than the day of birth.” Kohelet is related to the word k’hilah, or congregation, or a “gathering.”  Oy…there’s that ingathering again!  For the Haftorah on Shabbat during the festival we read about the bloody, apocalyptic battle of Gog and Magog and our duty to bury the dead in the aftermath.  Feeling happy and joyous yet?  One might think that all these reminders of our mortality would render the Jewish People somber and sullen.  No!  It’s quite the opposite.  The Torah reminds us three times that this is our ultimate season of joy, our Z’man Simchateynu.  Jews maintain that real simcha is about facing reality.  The end of life is part of life, and the cycle continues.  We believe that accomplishment outranks potential.  Rather than despair, we are commanded to dwell in the sukkah with our best furnishings, singing songs, eating on our finest china, sleeping in comfort.  We may be mortal…but as King Solomon says: we should enjoy our life, enjoy our spouse, enjoy our Torah study; in other words, just have fun with it!
David Sacks quotes Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach who states that spending time in the sukkah is like getting a Divine hug.  After all the davening, judgment, apologizing and fasting, not to mention all the effort cooking and getting the sukkah together, we really need a hug!  A kosher sukkah can have two-and-a-half, three or four walls.  One might think that only a four-walled hut would do the trick, but just like the shape of the Hebrew letters of the word sukkah indicate (Spell it out), these three configurations are all acceptable.  David Sacks mentions that this may be the case since we may not always feel the “hug” of God’s presence.  Sometimes it’s overt -that’s the four-wall version.  But other times when the hug seems absent, just like the missing walls, we know God is still there.  Yom Kippur is commonly associated with fear or awe of God.  Sukkot represents the flip side of the coin, love of God.  Love of God wins!  Is it any wonder that Jews are estranged from their heritage?  They flock to the synagogue for the intensity of Kol Nidre but miss out on the hug, the loving, amazing holiday of Sukkot.
One might argue that we enter the realm of near-death on Yom Kippur when we abstain from human needs like food, drink, relations and luxuries in the effort to become angelic for the day.  We have just spent the ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur in limbo with the Book of Life open and our fate undecided.  Perhaps we remain in this angelic state during the Sukkot, not quite in the land of the living throughout the week, and then we launch into the mystical bonus holiday of Sh’mini Atzeret.  Therefore Sukkot can be seen as a week off from re-entering our day-to-day lives.  Our old life is over, we are forgiven for any misdeeds and the book is sealed on Yom Kippur, then we hover in this spiritual state between years in order to comprehensively inculcate our palpable relationship with the Eternal.  This is the true goal of Tishrei: to leave the holy month with a refilled reservoir of spirituality to replenish us over the course of the other eleven months of the calendar.
The inner dimension of our autumnal festival communicates the importance living with joy in all of life’s circumstances. We don’t hide from the reality of our temporal existence.  We know we only have so many times around on this annual holiday ferris wheel and hopefully we grow a little more with each revolution.  At the end of Sukkot we finish the holiday-infused period with mad rejoicing with our Torah, seven circles or hakafot during the ecstatic celebration of Simchat Torah.  We commemorate the cycle of life not in speech but with our dancing feet.
At the conclusion of our recent seven-hour Simchat Torah marathon I joined my friend Saul Blinkoff’s family for lunch at the shul barbeque.  We marveled at the depth and pageantry of the event.  We agreed how much we had benefitted by investing fully in the month of Tishrei in all its particulars.  We realized that only with such commitment to details does true catharsis take place.  As Kohelet concludes, “The conclusion of the matter: have awe of God and keep God’s commandments, for this is the duty of man.” As we finished our double burgers Saul said: “You don’t need a huge crowd for this holiday.  You just need to be with your family.”  We feel so blessed to be part of a connected, happy community.  At this time of year, Halloween is a blast, but Jews deserve to take a step beyond trick-or-treating, zombies and hangovers.  Our own Chag Ha’asif is the true formula for a year of the spirit.

Minor League Jewish Holidays

Sunday, May 10th, 2015

by Sam Glaser

A summary of every Jewish holiday:

 “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!

-Alan King

“I got a job on Madison Avenue in New York…and they fired me cause I took off too many Jewish holidays!”

-Woody Allen

 As soon as the Passover seders have passed, most are happy to NOT celebrate so much for a while.  And yet, there are another six days of matzah munching and another dozen holidays in the space of a month and a half.  Who needs to work?  Several important commemorations dot the calendar during the seven weeks leading up to the anniversary of receiving the Torah, Shavuot. I felt that any description of the Jewish festive cycle must make mention of these milestones that are typically left out of the holiday hall of fame.  Therefore, for this chapter I’m cramming in all of the lesser blips on the radar so that you don’t miss out on any of the fun.

The 15/16th of Nissan:

The Passover Seders…it’s matzah time!

The 16th of Nissan:
As soon as the first day of Pesach is over we start a special period called S’firat Ha’omer, where we count the forty-nine days until Shavuot, which occurs on the fiftieth day.  Forty-nine is a crucial number in Judaism; since the number seven runs throughout the fabric of reality, logically seven squared is also significant.

In the days of the Temple a certain measurement known as an “omer” of barley was offered on the second day of Pesach. Then we would start the countdown, building up our excitement for the climactic event of human history in the year 2448, the first Shavuot at Mount Sinai. Eventually this period became associated with the various permutations of the seven kabbalistic s’firot (Godly emanations through which God interacts with the world.)  This daily roadmap of spiritual growth opportunities allows us to refine our character traits to prepare for the ultimate “kabbalah,” personally receiving the Torah.  These days we commemorate this count with a simple blessing and then a counting of our own each night.  It’s a tremendous burden to remember to count every single day…if we miss even one, we can no longer make the blessing the rest of the nights!  God forbid I miss out on a chance to make a blessing!  I’m very grateful for technology to keep me in the mix: I get an email every day to remind me and my iphone siddur concludes the ma’ariv service with a listing of the proper day.

During Rabbi Akiva’s time, the Talmud tells us that 12,000 pairs of his students died during S’firat Ha’omer since they didn’t treat each other with proper respect.  Therefore this period became associated with an awareness of the importance of achdut (Jewish unity) and a state of semi-mourning.  Celebrations like weddings, bar/bat mitzvah parties, concerts or even niceties like the joy of a shave or haircut are prohibited.  The bottom line is that what should have been a time of joyous anticipation is now subdued.  I must admit that these restrictions are somewhat of a bummer, especially for frum musicians.  With no parties or events in need of live music, many hunker down in the studio or take extended vacations, wondering how they will pay the rent come June.  The one exception to the rule is singing without instruments and thanks to this leniency, grateful a capella groups sell lots of albums this time of year.

The 17th of Nissan:

The intermediate days of Passover begin as soon as the second day (or the first day in Israel) of the holiday has ended.  Yes, it’s still officially Pesach!  The status of these four intermediate “Chol Hamo’ed” days is one of festive nature but most types of work can be done.  Our prayers are of the weekday variety with special holiday insertions, plus the addition of a celebratory Hallel, Torah reading and Mussaf.  That means that the whole week one is spending a lot of time in shul!  FYI: Chol Hamo’ed also takes place during the week of Sukkot in the fall.  Many in the working world attempt to keep their jobs intact by showing up in the office normally, or as normal as one can appear when munching matzah at the lunch break.  I think it’s best (and the rabbis agree,) if at all possible to take the time off, to relax and enjoy day trips with friends and family.  We love the fact that the amusement parks, hiking spots and beaches are empty, unless of course Passover coincides with Spring Break.  There are certain restrictions in place to keep a sense of the sacred…check with your favorite rabbi for details.  The Shabbat of Chol Hamoed is a unique collision of holiday joy and Sabbath sanctity.  The services are usually particularly sweet and are enhanced with the public reading of the evocative love poetry of Shir Hashirim, the Song of Songs.

21st/22nd of Nissan:

The last two days of the week of Pesach:  These days are treated with the same restrictions as any Jewish holiday.  There are no special observances other than the pleasure of hearing the Torah portion featuring the splitting of the Red Sea read on the anniversary of our crossing.  The eighth day of the holiday is one of a few times per year that we stop to remember those loved ones who have left the earth in a short memorial ceremony called Yizkor.  Since I’m typically leading Passover programs around the country, these extra two days after a busy week of concerts for Chol Hamo’ed offer much needed r&r.  If you have the opportunity to share the final meal of the eighth day with Chassidim you will be treated to another four cups of wine and plenty of song and spirit during their annual “Mashiach Seudah.” This festive meal echoes the themes of the Haftorah reading of the day, which heralds the imminent arrival of the Messiah.

 The 26th of Nissan:

The first of the many commemorations on the heels of Pesach is Yom HaShoah.  This date was chosen by the Israeli government to memorialize the six million since it is close to the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, representing the indomitable Jewish spirit, even though the uprising was doomed.  Whereas the Orthodox world maintains that Tisha B’av covers all the maladies throughout history, I think it is appropriate that the Holocaust has it’s own milestone to keep the memory fresh.  While it is much more of an event in the Holy Land, Diaspora organizations typically hold memorials featuring survivor testimonials, and it is also the day that over 10,000 participants on the annual March of the Living meet in Auschwitz. I am often asked to perform songs like my Born To Remember or One Hand, One Heart songs at ceremonial gatherings and I appreciate the opportunity to help my fellow Jews connect both to the vast destruction and the miracle of our survival.

 The 1st and 2nd of Iyar:

The next special day is actually one that occurs every month.  Rosh Chodesh (head of the month) and is the celebration of the new moon/new month.  This mitzvah is the very first commandment given to the Jews as a free people in Egypt.  In other words, now that we are no longer slaves, not only are we accountable for how we spend our time, but we also have the opportunity to sanctify it.  The first month we had the chance to commemorate in Egypt was Nissan, and knowing when Rosh Chodesh occurred gave us the chronological awareness of when to take the lamb for the Passover sacrifice and then which day the seder (and exodus) would occur.  Two weeks after the full moon on Nissan ushers in Pesach it’s time for the next Rosh Chodesh, this time for the month of Iyar.

Rosh Chodesh is formally announced during the Torah service on the prior Shabbat.  Leading that “Shabbat Mevarchim” service is one of my favorite pieces of chazzanut and is always a happy moment for the community, not only for the optimism with which we greet the new month, but also because in many synagogues in our neighborhood it means that there will be a sumptuous free lunch.  One of the beautiful aspects of Rosh Chodesh is that determining the precise day was the job of the Sanhedrin; in other words, it was up to mankind to determine exactly when our sacred holidays take place.  The Sabbath comes every week but the holidays are a powerful sign of man’s partnership in the destiny of the universe.

 Rosh Chodesh prayer service includes Hallel and a special Mussaf.  Hallel is a series of King David’s Psalms that describe our national redemption, God’s love for the Jewish People and how we reciprocate with dutiful partnership and gratitude. Yes, you should buy my Hallel album to get into the feeling and memorize the words!  These poetic verses are typically sung with abandon and have served as a beacon of hope in our long exile.

The primary theme of Rosh Chodesh is the

miracle of the eternal Jewish People, how like the moon we wax and wane over the millennia but keep on shining.  Chodesh is also closely related to the word for newness, chadash.  The fact that we follow a lunar-based calendar demonstrates that we emphasize the importance of welcoming newness in our lives.  New insights, fresh inspiration, renewed hope and of course, new music.  Rosh Chodesh is also known as the women’s holiday; according to the Talmud it is a special day of the spirit given to women as a reward for their unwavering faith throughout the ages.

The 3rd of Iyar:

Yom Hazikaron is Israel’s official Memorial Day for the remembrance of those who fell in war or in acts of terrorism. Back in 1951 the Israel government declared that it was best to separate the ecstatic celebration of Independence Day from the mourning and memory, so Yom Hazikaron was moved to the day before.  One-minute sirens are sounded at the start of the day at 8pm and then again the following morning at 11am when the official ceremonies begin.  This practice of solemnity before jubilation heightens the awareness of the price paid for Jewish independence.   For Modern Orthodox in the Diaspora the two are juxtaposed at large scale public gatherings in most cities during the early evening of the third of Iyar.  Typically the events consist of an array of sweet but poorly rehearsed school choirs singing memorial dirges that segue into songs of victory.  The requisite theme colors are blue and white, local dignitaries utter sound bites of support and then everyone sings a very moving Hatikvah together.

The 4th of Iyar:

Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day is a serious party throughout the Land of Israel.  Crowds gather for concerts and dancing and proudly display Israeli flags on their apartments, cars and bodies.  BBQ’s abound and an interesting custom of bashing strangers on the head with squeaky plastic hammers has evolved.  Since we usually don’t have that day off in the Diaspora the commemorations are typically moved to the Sunday before or after with gala concerts taking place in large outdoor settings.  Yom Ha’atzmaut is an amazing time of Jewish unity since love for Israel is one thing upon which all Jews can agree.  I love seeing all my holy brothers and sisters from the four corners of the earth rejoicing together and that experience alone is worth braving the traffic and heat at the local events. Most synagogues have special morning services to commemorate the day and include Hallel to acknowledge the miraculous nature of Israel’s founding.

The 14th of Iyar:

Pesach Sheni is perhaps the dimmest blip on the annual holiday radar.  Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach called it the “capitol of second chances” since its initiation came as a result of spiritually impure individuals arguing to Moses that they too had a right to a Passover celebration.  God established that the month after the official seder would be the designated time when such individuals could bring the offering to the Temple.  Nowadays most forget about the holiday until it’s time to utter the penitential Tachanun prayers in the morning service and the rabbi reminds everyone, to their immense relief, that thanks to Pesach Sheni they can be skipped.

The 18th of Iyar:

Lag B’omer is an acronym of the Hebrew letters lamed and gimel, signifying the 33rd day of the counting of the omer.  The day commemorates the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the great mystic who popularized the esoteric teachings of Kabbalah in his text, the Zohar.  He commanded his disciples to rejoice on this day and therefore parties replete with bonfires, concerts and dancing erupt throughout the world in celebration of his life and the revelation of the hidden secrets of Torah.  Also, according to tradition the aforementioned tragedy with Rabbi Akiva’s students ended on this day so most Jews welcome the end of the mourning aspect of the S’firat Ha’omer period.

My brother Yom Tov makes an annual pilgrimage to the site of Rabbi Shimon’s grave in Meron where hundreds of thousands of Chassidim dance in an all night bacchanalian frenzy.  Many save the official third birthday first haircut of their boys for this event.  Here in the States I am usually leading a citywide jam session sponsored by Chabad, attended mostly by young adults.  These outdoor gigs are always rowdy and amusing. One local LA rabbi who hired me to do his event on the beach insisted that I bring my full PA system.  I wasn’t excited about the combination of my expensive electronics, drunken revelers and sand, but I acquiesced.  Sure enough he had dragged hundreds of feet of extension cords across the bike path so that I could properly crank it up. Of course before the first note sounded the local authorities promptly put an end to this negligent behavior.  I then had to scramble to find a local friend with a guitar and endeavored to make hundreds of people happy without the help of amplification.

The 28th of Iyar:

Yom Yerushalayim commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem following the 1967 Six Day War.  Many remember this time as the apex of international Jewish pride and unity.  For all of us who have spent time in the holy city and feel so connected and at home while wandering it’s golden pathways, we relish in this day to dwell upon her triumphs.  Religious Zionists insist that the recitation of Hallel is even more pertinent on this day than Israel Independence Day.  While not widely celebrated outside of Israel it is often occasion for public gatherings and concerts, especially on the milestone years.

The 1st of Sivan:

Rosh Chodesh once again!  That makes for a total of a dozen “holidays” for your enjoyment between the seders and Shavuot on the 6th/7th of Sivan.  Welcome to the Minor Leagues!  Whoever said “it is hard to be a Jew” clearly missed the point; being Jewish is a PARTY!  I hope to celebrate with all of you together in Jerusalem, speedily in our day.