We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing
As a loyal reader of the “Bluffton Sun” over the last few years, you will have seen a wide variety of authors who contribute articles representing the many faith communities of the Low Country. I am certainly honored to be one of those, serving as the rabbi of Temple Oseh Shalom. If you take a moment to think about the articles I have written, you will see they have one theme in common, hoping to show how our faith communities share so much more than how we are different.
In the last two weeks, the Jewish community around the world celebrated and experienced the High Holy Days, a ten day period beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the religious new year, and concluding with Yom Kippur, a solemn and profound day of introspection and atonement for the failings and weaknesses in our lives for the past year, inspiring us to do better in the new year just begun.
Just five days after the day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, we have a seven-day period of thanksgiving. Called Sukkot, “Booths”, you will find it in the Bible where it is called the Feast of Tabernacles. As in most Jewish holy days or festivals, it combines an historic event with a celebration of nature. In this case, Sukkot reminds us of the forty-year exodus in the wilderness of the Israelites upon leaving Egypt. In synagogues and homes around the world Jewish families and communities build a temporary room open to the sky, covered with branches for coverings open enough to see the sky. These represent the huts the ancient Israelites built during those forty years wandering the desert. But Sukkot also represents the beginning of Autumn and the time of Harvest. We give thanks to God for the food we enjoy, the gathering of crops from the fields, and all of those who make those harvests possible.
So where does this fit in with you? All of you not in the Jewish community? Well, just a few weeks from now we all will celebrate one of the most beloved holidays in our American calendar, the day of Thanksgiving, sharing our gratitude for the harvest, gathering our friends and family members at our festive holiday table, where we give thanks for all of these blessings. Yes, but how does that connect with Sukkot? When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts, tradition tells us that, being the very religious sect that they were, they chose to honor that ancient Israelite tradition of the Feast of Tabernacles as found in the Bible, to give thanks to God for their arrival in the new world, and according to some stories, to give thanks for the welcome they received from the indigenous native American people they met there.
When the turkey and all the trimmings are found on your table in a few weeks, remember that we are honoring those ancient Israelites traversing the desert as the Pilgrims did crossing the ocean. We share so much, and especially this season when we take time to give thanks for so much.
Rabbi Ken Kanter currently serves the local Jewish congregation at the Temple Oseh Shalom in Bluffton, S.C.
