Tonight we start the holiday of Sukkot. This year the way the calendar falls out we go right from two days of Yom Tov into Shabbat. The Haftarah we read on Shabbat ( which is the same one we read on Chol Ha-Moed Pesach) is the story of Gog u-Magog from the book of Yechezkel. Here we read about a prophesied enemy nation of God’s people. This prophecy is meant to be fulfilled at the approach of what is called the “end of days“, but not necessarily the end of the world. Jewish eschatology viewed Gog u-Magog as enemies to be defeated by the Messiah, which will usher in the age of the Messiah. Magog was one of the nations according to Genesis descended from Yafet son of Noah (Genesis 10:2). What is the connection between this fanciful prophetic vision of the end of days and the Sukkot?
I was thinking about this question recently while reading up on my Norse mythology. As I previously mentioned I have been preparing to take my boys to see Thor: Ragnarok which is coming out in theaters soon. In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle, foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr, and Loki), the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water. Afterward, the world will resurface anew and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet, and the world will be repopulated by two human survivors. Ragnarök is an important event in Norse mythology, and has been the subject of scholarly discourse, theory throughout the history, and a movie that I hope lives up to the hype.
There are some very interesting connections between these two myths that talk about an end of days war that will reboot the system. It is noteworthy that at the end of Sukkot we move into Simchat Torah in which we we celebrate the end and the restarting of the liturgical reading of the Torah. Like Ragnarök, after violence and complexity of the war of Gog u-Magog we will reboot our narrative and also start the story of the world with the simplicity of two human survivors. Maybe we read Gog u-Magog to prepare for our return to Eden. What is it about the human condition that needs to experience such violence before we are ready for the messianic vision of rebirth.
-For more Norse Mythology and Torah see Binding: Fenrir and Isaac
Said to Myself 