Nature and Spirit – Thought for Sukkot 2023

Meirav and I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom and Chag Same’ach!

Here is my thought for Sukkot — My plans for teaching up next!Nature and Spirit: Thoughts on Sukkot 2023 (adapted from previous years)

I am one of those who accepts the idea of “natural religion.” This belief does not mean the worship of the natural world. Scholars use the term to mean that religion grows out of human nature.

There are many people, perhaps you, who feel that life is imbued with the “numinous” – a unique spiritual quality, encountered outside of us or found within us. Many of us have a natural drive toward depth. We experience that depth in many spontaneous ways. Sometimes just sitting alone, or with those whom we love, or reading, or listening to music, or watching great cinema, or experiencing art, or sometimes in conversation with family or friends, you suddenly feel that the quality of the moment has shifted, almost as if the air pressure has changed.

Much of what we call religion is the coalescing of these moments into communal experiences, then into rituals so that the experience can be evoked and relived.

Here is my imaginative reconstruction of the history of Sukkot, the holiday which begins tonight, Friday night. Orchards and fields of crops are usually found some distance from the place where people live. Walking back and forth each day to and from these distant fields and orchards during harvest time would be unfeasible. Farmers find it more convenient to build a temporary hut next to fields, perhaps covered with some of the cuttings found on the ground around that day’s harvest.

Some farmers just go to sleep when it gets dark. Others lie awake a little while. Perhaps sitting quietly just a bit, overwhelmed with gratitude for a plentiful harvest. Perhaps looking up at the stars through the small gaps of the foliage overhead, and then looking around at the stunning, moonlit beauty of the fields. Looking over at their loved ones. Looking over at the other huts that house other sleeping families and friends. Sitting there, filled with gratitude and love, and filled with a knowing of the great Presence.

Some people who believe that there is God and who also experience the numinous in deep ways have a natural need to express awe and gratitude toward that experience. Imagine some small hamlet in which those few people who experience the numinous know who each other are. They share a longing and a language of wonder, hoping to capture the beauty of those moments in words, poetry, song, music and dance, so that the beauty can be re-evoked.

Perhaps the more tactile ones put together a careful handful of the local foliage to signify the Divine Presence. Not everyone understood what those people were saying and doing, but many did.

Natural inner life religion eventually turned into revealed / ritual religion, into various revealed religions. The natural human need to experience the Divine does not change though the forms of the experience do.

Sadly, for most of us, the holiday of Sukkot is a residue of times long gone. In order to experience its origins, you have to activate another powerful human tool: the mythic imagination. Whether you do this in a Sukkah or not, consider sitting outside for a bit and gazing at that Harvest Moon (the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox – always apparent during Sukkot). Imagine being overwhelmed by the bounty, enjoying the easy company of other people. Imagine everyone sitting around the fire in the midst of the camp.

As you sit outside, contemplate what is inside your house or apartment. Probably way more stuff than you need, but nevertheless, lots of miraculous artifacts. Music collections and musical instruments. Books and photographs. Things that symbolize the love in your life, mementos of places you have been. Try to distill all that largesse into the few things that symbolize more than anything the bounty in your life. Imagine a beautiful room, decorated only with those articles that point to the deepest moments in your life. Perhaps, in that quiet, you will feel the spirit passing through you.

Perhaps during these days of Sukkot, you can make sure to gather with some family and friends for a festival meal or just a quiet moment in the Sukkah, or maybe you go back inside and just phone, text or video chat with some special people. Create a digital Sukkah.

Contemplating the material bounty and beauty outside of us, the spiritual plenty within us, and the love and generosity of those dear to us, can cause us to ache with the heaviness of the spirit. The heaviness becomes unbearably light, as it transforms into joy.

Of course, we have to get back to life. The Sukkah comes down. We hope, though, that the pause inside the beauty of that moonlit hut, the numinous will be anchored in our souls.