Ushpizin

By RABBI JOSEPH H. PROUSER

One of the distinctive elements of Succot observance is “Ushpizin” – the nightly, formulaic invitation to historic characters to “join us” in our Succah as esteemed and honored guests. Typically, guests include: Abraham Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David. 

Some opt to invite female Ushpizin: say, the “seven prophetesses” – Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Abigail, Hannah, Huldah, and Esther.  Others have modernized the Ushpizin ritual by inviting pairs of biblical personages:  Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, etc.

Ushpizin is a reminder that we are always in the company of our forbears and predecessors, and that we but continue a tradition they have entrusted to us.

The Ushpizin ritual lends itself to creative personalization.  Think of the interview column in the New York Times Book Review section that always ends by asking: “You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?”

In our age of entrenched divisiveness and siloed sources of truth and information, I propose an Ushpizin for the most productive debaters of the Rabbinic Era – disputants who learned from listening to each other’s contrasting viewpoints:  Rav and Shmuel, Hillel and Shammai, Akiba and Ishmael, Yochanan and Resh Lakish, Abaye and Rava, Rav Chisda and Rav Huna, Ravina and Rav Acha.

Now that’s a dinner party!

Whom would you invite?

Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the editor of “Masorti: The New Journal of Conservative Judaism.”