Parashat Chol HaMo-eid Sukkot Exodus 33:12–34:26
Dear TBE Community,
“We must imagine Sisyphus happy.” With that sentence, Albert Camus wraps up The Myth of Sisyphus, his exploration of the absurd condition of our human existence. He argues that we must find joy, that we must love life despite or precisely because of the absurdity of our efforts and longings, our impermanent existence against the backdrop of a permanent, eternal universe.
When it comes to the description of the human condition, there is much overlap between the French Existentialists and Kohelet, or Ecclesiastes, the book of biblical wisdom literature that we read during Sukkot. Yet one big difference is that for the Existentialists, there is no God who holds it all together, while for Kohelet, “the sum of the matter, when all is said and done (is): Revere God and observe His commandments!” (12:13)
This conclusion might come as a surprise after twelve chapters that call out the havel havalim, the absurdity of our earthly pursuits. The translation “vanity of vanities” of the King James Bible that is often criticized is arguably quite fitting, if we understand “vanity” as coming from the Latin vanitas – as “in vain”: futile, impermanent.
And yet we read the book during z’man simchateinu – the season of our rejoicing. During the intermediate days of the seven-day festival, the traditional greeting is: Moadim l’simcha – a reminder that these are “times of joy.”
And this brings me back to Albert Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus – the absurdity Camus diagnosed as the condition of human life: Sisyphus, who must forever roll a rock up a hill only to see it slip and thunder down to the valley again. This Sisyphus, we must imagine him finding joy in his existence, in the futility of his task. The in-vain-ness of his efforts, with nothing new under the sun.
Over the High Holidays I spoke about the fleetingness of our existence, and the permanent impermanence of all things human is also one important theme of Sukkot.
While the urge to rejoice applies to every festival, on Sukkot, the mitzva is even more poignant as the holiday and Kohelet remind us of inevitable losses, of the preciousness of our limited existence, the preciousness of our shared lives, shared joys.
The poem in Chapter 3 is well-known, for its almost stoic assessment that “there is a time set for everything.” Chapter 12 however is the stronger poem, not only as an example of Biblical poetry but also in its imagery and language, its more mournful tone, its recognition of finality:
On the day that the guards of the house will quake
and the stalwart men be twisted
and the maids who grind grow idle, for they are now few
and those who look from the casements go dark.
And the double doors close in the market
as the sound of the mill sinks down,
and the sound of the birds arises,
and all the songstresses are bowed.
Of the very height they are afraid,
and terror is in the road.
And the almond blossoms,
and the locust tree is laden,
and the caper fruit falls apart.
For man is going to his everlasting house,
and then mourners turn round in the market.
Until the silver cord is snapped,
and the golden bowl is smashed,
and the pitcher is broken against the well
and the jug smashed at the pit.
And dust returns to the earth as it was, and the life-breath returns to God who gave it.
Merest breath, said Kohelet. All is mere breath.
The scholar Robert Alter chose to translate the futility, the vanity, as “breath,” underscoring the essential effervescence of our nefesh, the engine of our earthly life.
On a related plane, Sukkot is the festival of redemption. Not in the Exodus sense of being brought out of Egypt, but as the fulfillment of that redemption narrative, which is reached when, in the words of the prophet Zecharia, “the Eternal with all the holy beings will come to us, on a day on which there will be neither sunlight nor cold moonlight, but one continuous day (…) and Adonai shall be sovereign over all the earth; on that day Adonai shall be one and His name one” – the last words of the Aleinu.
The poetics of redemption ask us to imagine a time when time is suspended, when our understanding of “a time for everything” shifts, when the time for being born is the same of the time for dying, when time, when smashed jugs and broken pitchers no longer affect us.
Sukkot offers the opportunity to explore the space between impermanence and eternity, to practice the balancing act that is our everyday life: to find meaning in rolling up that rock despite the futility; to realize how serious and precious life is because of the inherent in-vain-ness, and, as Camus imagined Sisyphus, to be happy nonetheless.
Shabbat Shalom! Moadim l’simcha!