Said to Myself

The Symbol of the Sukkah: Physical and Metaphysical

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As I was sitting in our sukkah this week, I got to thinking about what this behavior represents. The Talmud records a difference of opinion between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer teaches that the sukkot of the desert experience were “clouds of glory,” which hovered over the Children of Israel for forty years in the wilderness. Rabbi Akiva disagrees saying,  “The sukkot were real booths that they built for themselves.” (Sukkah 11b) It seems strange in that either way you cut it the Sukkah is a symbol. The question is does this symbol represent something akin to what we are using or does it represent a metaphor. Did either Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva think that we are actually sitting in the imagined reference point? I am not saying that they are lying, but neither is real. So what are they disagreeing about?

At one level we could understand the disagreement between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva to be one of understanding what it means to be Jewish. Is being Jewish a religion ( “clouds of glory”) or a nationality ( real booths they used post Exodus in the desert)?   Joseph Campbell said:

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.
But maybe that is the point of the sukkah any way. It is immersive metaphor we get to really enter. The sukkah can be a symbol of our experience as a people in physical and history way at the same time as it can be a religious manifestation of our metaphysical relationship with God.  In this horrid political season it is wonderful to find a place in the sukkah where we can all come together, both expressions are authentic, and neither is a liar.

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Quote of the week

But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then erase me out of the book you have written.

~ Exodus 32:32

Said to Myself

About

My name is Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow. I have always had a deep love for the Jewish people and making the world a better place. It was while building community in the Former Soviet Union for YUSSR that I realized the transformative power of being a rabbi. After spending time learning in Israel, I moved to New York to be a charter student in Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the Open Orthodox Seminary. After graduating in 2004 until 2008 I served as the Rabbi and ran the program at St. Louis Hillel at Washington University. Now I have the great pleasure of thinking about how Judaism is seriously fun. In my mind I am up at camp every day in my work at the Foundation for Jewish Camp. My wife, Cantor Adina Frydman, and I are the proud parents of Yadid, Yishama, Emunah, and Libi.

Said to Myself

When my son Yadid was four years old he came home from daycare and reported to me that he got into trouble. He got put into timeout for throwing sand at another child. Yadid said,” Myself said to myself, I do not want to be in timeout. Myself said to my cry, I do not want to cry”. And with that we started a conversation about his conscious life. It seemed only fitting to continue that conversation with a blog with the same name.

אָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי בְּלִבִּי

My son spoke in the words of Ecclesiastes, “I said in my heart: ‘Come now, I will try you with mirth, and enjoy pleasure’; and, behold, this also was vanity.” (Kohelet 2:1) My mission is to model a life that is personally meaningful, universally relevant, and distinctly Jewish. I aspire to be frank and to speak of Torah in real life.

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