The
Hidden Richness of Jewish Holidays
by
Senior Rabbi, Alan Green (00-Present)
Published in the Shaarey Zedek Shofar in March
2008
Generally when I hear
someone say that they “celebrate the holidays,” I know exactly what
they mean. It means that they celebrate the High Holy Days in the
fall, Chanukah in winter, and Pesach in spring. Certainly, the
Pesach Seder is celebrated by more Jews than any other holiday. The
fact that people continue to celebrate this and other Jewish
holidays after so many centuries and so many persecutions is
actually a great miracle.
On the other hand, which
holidays get ignored by this minimalist approach to Judaism? Sukkot,
Sh’mini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Tu B’Shevat, Purim, Shavuot, and
Tisha B’Av (not to mention, Shabbat). In other words, most of us
ignore most of the Jewish holidays, more or less completely. So – is
the cup half empty, or half full?
To my way of thinking,
celebrating the Jewish holiday cycle in its fullness is the essence
of being a Jew. But as Rabbi Arthur Waskow tells us, our holidays
have become ghettos in time—small enclaves where we can temporarily
withdraw into our Jewishness.
Waskow writes, “But
ghettos in time are no more comfortable than ghettos in space used
to be. If our holidays are only ghettos, we tend to forget about
them. We forget how to celebrate them, and we depend on rabbis and
other Jewish professionals to celebrate them for us. We forget that
some holidays even exist. We let them be bubbles—and even less than
that.”
Indeed, when we have
trouble making a Minyan for Simchat Torah—celebrating the joy of the
Torah—it seems that the very survival of the tradition hangs in the
balance. Like an actual bubble, it seems as though Judaism is about
to pop.
Waskow continues: “The
ghettos in space have vanished. But for many of us, the ghettos in
time are vanishing too. And, as they vanish, so do the things that
make Jewish life distinctive, and attractive.” So it wasn’t just
stubbornness, or the hatred of the gentile world that facilitated
our survival as a people. There was, and is, something enormously
fulfilling about being Jewish and celebrating it in one’s life.
However, the disappearance
of Jewish practice among North American Jews has set an interesting
dynamic in motion. The very lack of meaning and structure in the way
so many of us spend our lives has created a tremendous thirst for
meaning and structure. Rarely in human history have so many people
sought for something deeper than what is available on the surface of
the mind and senses. The book of Psalms could well be speaking of
our own generation when it says (24:6), “This is the generation of
those that seek Him, that seek Thy face...”
Celebrating the Jewish
holidays could provide a large part of the answer to this
generation’s spiritual quest. There is a hidden richness in the
celebration of the holiday cycle. Most of the holidays can be
experienced in several dimensions simultaneously—as celebrations of
nature, of history, and of our own spiritual development. Few
experiences on earth hold out the possibility of integrating the
physical, the spiritual, and the historical in one fell swoop.
Also, there is a hidden
richness in that the holidays actually combine to form a wholeness
greater than the sum of their parts. The holidays are intended to
teach us how to experience the most profound patterns of life. From
celebrating the holidays in their completeness, we learn how to live
more in harmony with the environment; with each other, and within
ourselves.
So, as we prepare to
celebrate our Pesach Seder this year, let us give a thought to the
holidays that precede and follow Pesach. You may not have celebrated
Purim or Shavuot since you were a child, but it doesn’t mean that
they are kid stuff. Purim, Shavuot, and all the other ignored
holidays of the Jewish year still retain the power to provide an
essential dimension of experience that may be missing from your
life, and that of your family.
Here is wishing everyone a
Chag Sameach!—a spring time of holiday joy.
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