{"id":38870,"date":"2017-10-11T16:14:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T22:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=38870"},"modified":"2017-10-11T16:14:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T22:14:30","slug":"those-low-rent-sinai-booths-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/those-low-rent-sinai-booths-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Those low-rent Sinai booths"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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They were renters in the sandy suburbs, not home-owners in the heartland of Jerusalem.\u00a0\u00a0They obviously weren\u2019t anxious to settle down to homeownership and a mortgage with all its attendant responsibilities.\u00a0\u00a0\u201dOh 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.\u00a0\u00a0Who wants to clear land, plow furrows, plant, and pluck grape vines in the Promised Land?\u00a0\u00a0What\u2019s promised, cried the cynics?\u00a0\u00a0A bent back?\u00a0\u00a0Aching muscles?\u00a0\u00a0Rainless days, and windy nights to blow down your crops?\u00a0\u00a0Slaves, say our rabbis (and modern behaviorists) are scared stiff by freedom.<\/p>\n

They were also hesitant because they feared \u201cthe inhabitants of the land.\u201d\u00a0 Slaves – regardless of Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus” – make lousy warriors:\u00a0\u00a0even 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.\u00a0\u00a0No work.\u00a0\u00a0Sleep late.\u00a0\u00a0Then lots of leisure time to talk about those Five intriguing Books that Moshe brought down from the mountaintop.\u00a0\u00a0There was free manna spiced up with an occasional quail dinner.\u00a0\u00a0And those low-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.\u00a0\u00a0You 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 succah for twenty years.\u00a0\u00a0Because for twenty years – Succot, Pesach, the High Holidays, Chanukah, and my sister-in-law\u2019s birthday – we lived in a house with a leaky roof.\u00a0\u00a0You could feel the rain if you went up into the attic.\u00a0\u00a0And with a little imagination, see the stars.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWho lives in a succoh only on Succot?\u201d I boasted to my rabbi.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we sleep in it, too,\u201d I added, \u201c365 days a year.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0He didn’t look impressed.<\/p>\n

The assistant rabbi (who only lives in his succah for seven days out of 365) looked unimpressed too.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cTed, your house is not EXACTLY like the booths of our forefathers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither is the traditional succah, I thought.<\/p>\n

Who knows what building material existed in the Sinai peninsula of 1300 BC?\u00a0\u00a0Maybe the huts were made of animal skins.\u00a0\u00a0Whatever their construction, they weren\u2019t seven-day, bucolic, backyard mess halls – they were home sweet home all year \u2018round.\u00a0\u00a0We\u2019re commanded to seven days of racial deja vu so that we never forget our origins:\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0The homeland promised 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.\u00a0\u00a0Simple.\u00a0\u00a0But 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.\u00a0\u00a0Leaving only one of three explanations:<\/p>\n

A)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A self-incriminating answer.\u00a0\u00a0We did not fulfill our covenant responsibilities.<\/p>\n

B)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0An unthinkable answer.\u00a0\u00a0The Almighty reneged on the agreement.<\/p>\n

C)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A legal answer.\u00a0\u00a0It all depends on what you mean by \u201cCanaan\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moses, I\u2019m betting, would go for answer A.\u00a0\u00a0But maybe he should have insisted that the covenant be in writing and with a lot more detail.<\/p>\n

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