Tents

By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER

Many congregations conducted this year’s High Holiday services under open-walled tents: a wise health and safety precaution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a chaplain serving the Boy Scouts of America, I conducted countless outdoor services under canvas. This year’s Holidays – so very different from years past – thus nevertheless had a comforting familiarity!

Tents have an honored place in Jewish history.

Abraham and Sarah launched our religious tradition by generously welcoming angelic guests to their tent, said to have been open on all four sides (Genesis 18)!

The “Tent of Meeting” served our ancestors of the Wilderness Period as the center of Israelite community and ritual (Exodus 28:43, etc.).

We cite the prophet Balaam’s blessing of the Jewish People – “How goodly are your Tents!” (Numbers 24:5) – as a liturgical welcome to our own places of worship.

In defining worthy and righteous living, the Psalmist asks, “Lord, who will dwell in Your Tent? …Those who live with integrity, do what is right, and speak the truth that is in their hearts” (Psalms 15:1).

The tents used for recent Holiday worship – like the traditional ad hoc structures which give the approaching Festival of Succot its name – are a sacred, urgent, and dramatic reminder to consider:

What is but temporary and transient…

…and what is truly eternal?

(Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the former National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)