FROM VULNERABILITY TO JOY
FROM VULNERABILITY TO JOY:
A biblical study on Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret
Background
This biblical study is enriched and inspired by the commentary of Rabbi David Hoffman (JTS newsletter 8 October 2009). Hoffman mentioned the most “beautiful part of conversion” from the past life as sinner to the new life referring to the one of Jewish Festival – Shemini Atzeret (Dt. 14:22-16:17 and Num. 29:35-30:1) which is basically integrated with Yom Kippur (Lev. 16:1-34, Num. 29:7-11, and Lev. 18:1-30) and Sukkot (Lev. 22:26-23:44 and Num. 29:12-16).
This paper is very interesting to reflect as it brings symbolic meaning of the message of spiritual journey which ends with joyful. In addition, it is an effort to explain the relationship between vulnerability and joy as Hoffman’s statement in his commentary that … the joy that comes from experiencing true love is rooted in our ability to make ourselves vulnerable.
The writer describes the relationship between vulnerability and joy within the perspective of the three yearly Jewish Festivals – Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret.
Vulnerability and joy
Being vulnerable is not only an “exercise” to be more God-oriented but it is also an opportunity to be more open before God. It is a purification. According to Rabbi Akiva (JTS newsletter 8 October 2009) the “theological” view of being vulnerable can be read as the narrative of a promise that God – in his abundant love – will serve as purifying mikveh for all those who come before God (M. Yoma 8:9).
Rabbi David Hoffman stated specifically that being vulnerable is an invitation to experience the deep meaning of relationship. It is also a prayer. In the quiet of our prayers we shared our most intimate tears and hopes. We asked God to know us in our imperfections, stripped of our defenses and self-justifying arguments. And in these most honest moments of self-revelation and, thus, deep vulnerability, we find acceptance.
Being vulnerable is not without reason as it is an effort to revise the quality of relationship. It contains tears but within the frame of hopes. “Tears-in-hope construction” is basically a theology of enlightment that being a Catholic always bring real dream of happines, the other word of joyful. In times we experience vulnerability we realize of our imperfections, stripped of our defenses and self-justifying arguments. This also the way exercising totality and commitment of being surrended by God’s authority.
The joy is nothing without pricey effort specifically in a matter of controlling selfness. The joy will not come out without sacrificing of ourselves into the capacity of “being given” before God. We feel uncomfortable and sometimes mixed with anxiety, the other term of vulnerability, when we have to detach from the high ambitious dream into the awareness of reality. We are afraid of being away from our belongings.
The relationship between vulnerability and joy may also be discussed in the point of view God’s love as it is a process of experiencing the authenticity and originality of responding his love, and that this experience will end with a promise of happiness. In other words, vulnerability and joy have a “complementary” relationship. Joyfulness can not be possessed without having the “spirit” of vulnerability, or as Rabbi David Hoffman’s experiencing of self-exposure. Joyfulness can not be present without having the “sense” of vulnerability.
Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret
Rabbi David Hoffman added that the three events of Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret can be integrated into great truth about vulnerability, joy and love. Yom Kippur delivers the message of love, Sukkot refers to holiday with full of joy as stated in Deuteronomy 16:15, and Shemini Atzeret is the closing of Sukkot in which the Jews enter a place of deep personal vulnerability.
Green (2002) explains the three events of Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret, as follows:
Yom Kippur (Lev. 16:1-34, Num. 29:7-11, and Lev. 18:1-30), the 10th day of Tishery, is the holiest and most awesome day on the Hebrew calendar. It is called a “Sabbath of Sabbaths”; all work that is forbidden on the Sabbath on Yom Kippur as well. In addition, it is a full fast day, which means that there are five special prohibitions: against eating and drinking, sexual relation, bathing, wearing (leather) shoes, and wearing perfumes. The Talmudic (Talmud) tractate dealing with Yom Kippur is simply called “The Day.”
Yom Kippur is also one of the most ancient Jewish festivals. Its ritual, probably as practiced in First Temple times, is fully elaborated in Leviticus 16. The purpose of that ritual was to atone for Israel, its priests, and its Temple, to “cover” their sins and allow for a new purity. This was accomplished by sacrifice, the sprinkling of blood, and the unique expulsion of the scapegoat , who carried the sins of Israel off into the wilderness.
There are five prayer services on Yom Kippur. To each of them, a special penitential section called selihot is added; in the first four services, this also includes a lengthy confession of sins. The penintential hymns or selihot are interspersed with frequent calling out of God’s thirteen attributes, which are found in Exodus 34:6-7. This is the formula Moses mysteriously heard recited in the moment when God forgave Israel the sin of the golden calf, and it is still felt to have great power to arouse the forgiveness of sin.
Yom Kippur is generally considered to be a full day of prayer. In traditional synagogues, the leaders of prayer and many others are dressed in white, symbolizing innocence. The length and repetitious quality of the prayer services on Yom Kippur have a cathartic effect, and by the end of the fast, following the appearance of three stars in the evening sky, we are filled with a sense of both exhaustion and cleansing.
The purification of Yom Kippur is effective only for transgressions against God. Sins against our fellow person require that person’s forgiveness. Since Jews do not want to go through Yom Kippur with the burden of sin still upon them, it is customary before or on Yom Kippur for us to ask forgiveness of one another.
Sukkot (Lev. 22:26-23:44 and Num. 29:12-16), means “tabernacles”, booth or the festival of the fall full moon or Festival of Tabernacles (see Solomon, 2006:375), is celebrated for seven days that begin on the 15th of Tishrey. This is the Biblical “seventh month,” as prescribed in Leviticus 23:33 and Deuteronomy 16:13. Sukkot is a harvest festival, “the season of ingathering,” As we gather the produce of the field into our homes for the winter, so does God gather us into God’s special place, the sukkah.
The original kernel of this festival lies in the transition our ancient ancestors made from nomadic to settled agriculture-based existence. The farmers kept in their hearts the ancient memory of life as wanderers. Once a year, at the time of the first fall full moon, they would go out and live in wanderers’ tents for a week, just as at the spring full moon they took a week when they would eat only nomads’ bread, during the Festival of Matzot that was to be joined to our Pesah. The sukkah came to be associated with harvest time, and later still with the huts in which the people of Israel lived during our forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
Sukkot is called “the season of our joy,” and is meant to be the most joyous of all the festivals. This is not the frolicking joy of Purim, but a happiness born of deep satiety at the harvest and gratitude for God’s gifts. We also rejoice that the season of judgment has passed, confident that our sins are forgiven and the way is clear for us to start life anew. Sheltered in God’s love in the sukkah, we rejoice and dance before God with four plants enumerated in Leviticus 23:40, as identified in rabbinic tradition, namely lulav (palm frond), etrog (citron), three hadassim (myrtle branches), and two ‘aravot (willow branches). On the intermediate days of Sukkot a special libation ceremony occurred in the ancient Temple. The earliest rabbis, who still recalled the ceremony from the days before the Temple’s destruction, said: “Whoever has seen the joy of the Temple water-drawing has never seen joy at all!”
According to Solomon (2006:375) Sukkot has three primary levels of significance:
1) Historical.
It commemorates God’s protection afforded to the Israelites in the desert; “So that your generations should know that I made the Israelites dwell in booths (tabernacles) when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Lev 23:43). Tradition generally equates the “booths” of this verse with the protective “clouds of glory” that surrounded the Israelites during the 40 years of wandering in the Sinai desert.
2) Agricultural.
It is the final harvest festival of the year.
3) Religious.
God is our Protector; this is symbolized as we leave our homes and dwell in simple booths (sukkot). The Mishna states that on Sukkot heaven makes judgment as to how much water to provide for the coming year. This gives a penitential edge to the festival, though the main prayer for rain is delayed until Shemini Atzeret.
Shemini Atzeret (Dt. 14:22-16:17 and Num. 29:35-30:1) is the eight day from the start of Sukkot, but is considered a separate holiday on the Hebrew calender. Sukkot, according to Leviticus 23:34, is celebrated for seven days, but only on the first and eighth days is labor forbidden.
In the diaspora, Shemini Atzeret is celebrated as a holiday on its own. The sukkah is no longer used; neither are the lulav and etrog. No particular symbols are associated with this day, which is seen as a continuation of the joy of Sukkot. In Israel, Shemini Atzeret and Simhat Torah are celebrated on the same day, and it takes on primarily the character of the latter.
The Midrash offers several explanations for the “extra” holiday. Pilgrims would have come a long way to Jerusalem in order to celebrate Sukkot, probably the most widely observed pilgrimage festival. Some came for nearly the whole month to dwell in the sacred city and to be in “God’s courts.” Loving their company as He does, God is like the king who asks his beloved guest to stay an extra day, for the pure enjoyment of being together. Rashi (Lev. 23:26), as explained by Solomon (2006), interprets the festival with a parable illustrating the love between God and Israel: “It is like a king who invited his children to a banquet for several days. When the time came for them to depart, he said, ‘I beg you, stay with me one more day, it is hard for me to part from you.”
Other sources note that Sukkot is a universal holiday, when seventy bullocks are being offered over the course of the seven days in honor of the seventy nations of the world. God then invites Israel to stay an extra day just on their own, like the steward who stays in his master’s court after all the great guests have departed.
As the last statutory day of the fall festival season, Shemini Atzeret is the day when a prayer for rain is said in the mussaf prayer. This geshem prayer introduces the daily supplication for rain recited in each amidah prayer through the rainy season, ending with Pesah. Along with its parallel tal (“Dew”), recited on the first day of Pesah, it is chanted in an awesome melody reminiscent of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy.
The Relationship between Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret
When the three elements of truth -- love, joy and vulnerability -- are integrated each other, they become a reflection of God’s concern to his people. He will give us love and joy when we are able to “translate” the meaning of his presence through “deep personal vulnerability”. God is the source of love and joy, and sorrowful is sometimes related to the moment when we are doing something sinful. We regret of being sinful before God. But, having sorrowful moment also happen when we are blinded by our “humanness”. It happens when our human capacity can not understand that God always brings hope and love. (ign_heri_sw/2009)
REFERENCE
1)The Interpreter’s Bible (1953). New York: Abingdom Press
2)Mays, James L (2000). Bible Commentary. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
3)Solomon, Norman (2006). Historical Dictionary of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Maryland: Scare Crow Press Inc.
4)Green, Arthur (2002). These are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life. Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing
5)Alter, Robert (2004). The Five Books of Moses. New York: W.W. Norton & Company
