{"id":26171,"date":"2015-09-25T17:09:04","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T23:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=26171"},"modified":"2015-09-25T17:12:41","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T23:12:41","slug":"those-low-rent-sinai-booths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/those-low-rent-sinai-booths\/","title":{"rendered":"Those low-rent Sinai booths"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em>
\n\"Ted_Roberts\"

It doesn\u2019t mean \u201cbooths\u201d like phone booths or kissing booths. It means the huts, tents, and hovels of our vagabond ancestors who roamed the Sinai three millennia ago. They were renters in the sandy suburbs, not homeowners in the heartland of Jerusalem. They obviously weren\u2019t anxious to settle down to home ownership and a mortgage with all its attendant responsibilities.<\/p>\n

“Oh we love it out here in the desert; no taxes, no yards to cut, no nosy neighbors, plenty of manna….\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a rabbinic commentary explaining that our slave mentality was the deterrent that kept us in the desert for forty years. Who wants to clear land, plow furrows, plant, and pluck grape vines in the Promised Land? What\u2019s promised, cried the cynics? A bent back? Aching muscles? Rainless days, and windy nights to blow down your crops? Slaves, say our rabbis (and modern behaviorists) are scared stiff by freedom.<\/p>\n

They were also hesitant because they feared “the inhabitants of the land.” Slaves – regardless of Kirk Douglas in Spartacus – make lousy warriors: even though the Master Mapmaker himself promised them that the land on the East shore of the Mediterranean would be colored blue for Israel.<\/p>\n

The desert wasn\u2019t all bad. No work. Sleep late. Then lots of leisure time to talk about those Five intriguing Books that Moshe brought down from the mountaintop. There was free manna spiced up with an occasional quail dinner. And those lo-rent booths; a concept due for reinvention 3,300 years later in rent-controlled Manhattan.<\/p>\n

So, to remember all that, we relive it for seven days. You must be able to see the stars and feel the rain, says our tradition.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that condition that allows me to boast to my more observant friends that I\u2019ve lived in a succoh for twenty years. Because for twenty years – Succot, Pesach, High Holidays, Chanukah, and my sister-in-law\u2019s birthday – we lived in a house with a leaky roof. You could feel the rain if you went up into the attic. And with a little imagination, see the stars. \u201c<\/p>\n

Who lives in a succah only on Succot?\u201d I boasted to my Rabbi.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we sleep in it, too,\u201d I added, \u201c365 nights a year.\u201d He didn’t look impressed.<\/p>\n

The assistant rabbi (who only lives in his succah for seven days out of 365) looked unimpressed, too. \u201cTed, your house is not EXACTLY like the booths of our forefathers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither is the traditional succoh, I thought. Who knows what building material existed in the Sinai Peninsula of 1300 BC? Maybe the huts were made of animal skins. Whatever their construction, they weren\u2019t seven-day, bucolic, backyard mess halls – they were home sweet home all year \u2018round. We\u2019re commanded to seven days of racial deja vu<\/em> so that we never forget our origins: A desert-bound tribe of vagabonds poor in possessions, but endowed with the riches of those Five shining Books.<\/p>\n

We are also commanded on Succot to remember that we were befriended by the one True Allfather, who bent over the land of Egypt, picked us up by the scruff of our neck, and eventually brought us to our homeland: the homeland promised<\/em> by the covenant.<\/p>\n

The deal was as clear as the moon over the cloudless desert. Follow my Commandments and the land is yours. Simple. But if Moses swooped over the land of Canaan today, he would be astonished to find that clear title to the land is still not ours.<\/p>\n

Leaving only one of three explanations:
\nA) A self-incriminating answer. We did not fulfill our covenant responsibilities.
\nB) An unthinkable answer. The Almighty reneged on the agreement.
\nC) A legal answer. It all depends on what you mean by \u201cCanaan\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moses, I\u2019m betting, would go for answer A. But maybe he should have insisted that the covenant be in writing and with a lot more detail.<\/p>\n

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