Dunking Rachael: The Booth

Friday, September 5, 2008

The Booth

As I enter into this new Jewish year, for the first time as a Jew….I am attempting to engage in it all as fully as possible. This aspiration is mitigated somewhat by my life circumstances; I am a working person with a new husband, a new blended family and a full life. Clearly becoming the Jew I want to be will take some planning. I wonder….is there a life coach for that?

I have been busying myself with family plans for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I have been deep into channeling my “Martha Stewart” energy, making cards for the New Year and planning how to get my blended family together for a sumptuous holiday feast. Yet I can’t shake my Sukkot ambitions, I want to do Sukkot right! I want to build sukkah. Although many Jewish organizations, synagogues and Jewish community centers in my area have community sukkahs, I want to engage fully in this mitzvot. After checking out the sukkah landscape locally, It appears that many orthodox families in my area engage in this aspect of the holiday while only a few in other denominations actually build their own sukkah.

The Festival of Sukkot aka The Feast of Tabernacles, aka Feast of Ingathering, is celebrated beginning on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Tishri . For those who may still have JCC, Jewish Calendar Confusion (myself included) that is Tuesday, October 14, 2008. Sukkot in Hebrew is called z’man simhateinu — the season of our joy. It Is a Jewish festival of giving thanks for the fall harvest, as well as a commemoration of the forty years of Jewish wandering in the desert after Sinai.

Check out these links for more information

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism http://www.uscj.org/sukkot5656.html
Union for Reformed Judaism http://urj.org/holidays/sukkot/
Chabad http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template_cdo/aid/4126/jewish/Sukkot.htm

I must admit that prior to my consideration of conversion Sukkot always struck me as fun. I lived near a very large synagogue and their sukkah grew bigger and bigger and more elaborately decorated each year. It clearly appeared to me to be a happening, joyful place. I think I had sukkah envy.

Now I realize my desire to “do” Sukkot will take even more planning than I originally thought. At first it was a bit overwhelming so like everything in my Jewish journey I “goggled” it. As always I have been surprised and delighted by the results. There appears to be a vital commercial community of sukkot vendors. I even found a few used ones on a local Jewish bulletin board site. So now I am shopping for the best cheep, klutz proof, readymade sukkot I can find! Wish me luck I’ll need it!

The Sukkah Project http://www.sukkot.com/
The Seiger Sukkah http://www.siegersukkah.com/
How to build a Sukkah from scratch http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Sukkot/Overview_Sukkot_at_Home/Sukkah/Isaacs_Laws_339/Building_Sukkah.htm

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Brilliant post! I love your reference to JCC - I definitely have that and am feeling more than a little overwhelmed by everything that is brewing as the end of the year gets ever closer. Still, it's also exciting and I am looking forward to everyhitng that I can experience...

Rachel; September 9, 2008 at 4:47 AM

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Beit Din test Question #22 "If you were to join the Jewish people......."

22) If you were to join the Jewish people, what considerations would guide you to that decision? How did your course help you to recognize some meaningful ideas to Judaism? Are there some things you have learned in the course that you find difficult to accept into your life?

I have been a thinker and a seeker for most of my life. I have explored many faiths, been involved in and have a keen interest in philosophy and psychology. I was raised in an Irish/Italian Catholic home. I lived as a Buddhist/Unitarian Universalist for most of my adult life and previously was married for 20 years to a Jewish man who did not practice his faith of origin. At the birth of my child, now 19, I sought to learn as much as I could about Judaism in order to expose this child to the faith of part of her ancestors. So I come to this new point in my life with all my experiences, knowledge and aspirations.

But the question remains how did I come to consider conversion? It is though love that the door of conversion was opened. I fell in love with a Jewish man who participates in his religion, yet he did not require me to convert, pressure me, or in any way attempt to persuade or force me. This exploration of faith was of my choosing, my volition, nurtured by love.

Clearly I am not dogmatically tied to my faith of origin, seeing that the religious expressions which dominated my adult life have been mostly non-theistic. The major change/challenge for me is in the consideration/acceptance of a theistic understanding of existence. Through explorations with my sponsoring Rabbi, reading, (lots of reading!) and the Hillel class I have come to an understanding of the divine, a place of relationship with a theistic point of view that resonates within me.

To help to articulate this I refer to the work of existentialist thinker and Jewish educator Franz Rosenzweig.

“The function of religion, according to Rosenzweig, is not to erect theological systems or establish universal truths, but to lead to experience of God, starting from one's own personal existence. He "commends 'the Pharisees of the Talmud and the saints of the Church' for knowing that 'man's understanding extends only so far as his doing.' Religious observance is, in effect, the doing of one's religious convictions; the two cannot be separated."
“(Time Magizine Monday, Jan. 01, 1951 , http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,814185,00.html)

For Rosenzweig the written word was to be less important than the living exchange, for it is in the doing that the relationship to God will manifest. This idea blends well with my own mindfulness practices. These practices express that it is in the awareness of the moment, the only moment we truly have, where peace and divinity can be experienced.
Through my answers on this exam, my participation in the class and my meetings with my sponsoring Rabbi, I believe I clearly present that I am coming to know, and hopefully I am beginning to understand the meaningful ideas in relationship to Judaism. Clearly there is so much to learn, and experience.

I am most taken by the direct experience of the divine associated with taking on the laws and practices of this ancient faith. I have aspirations to practice in this tradition, but once again they can be best articulated through Rosenzweig:
“Rosenzweig’s approach was subjective also in connection with the mitzvot, Jewish observances. He did think that he would one day become a fully observant Jew, but believed in the gradual approach in which the observances slowly made their impact by “ringing a bell” for him. Typical of this approach is Rosenzweig’s answer to someone who asked him whether he wore tefillin [phylacteries]: “Not yet,” he replied.”
(My Jewish Learning.com http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Modern/IntellectualTO/Rosenzweig.htm)

Like the bell of mindfulness practice, the mitzvot, the mindfulness practice of Judaism, will take time to incorporated and to resonate within. Like the ringing of the mindfulness bell, or the sounding of the Shofar, the act of doing Judaic practices pierces the daily, the mundane and hopefully will help to awaken me to an even richer and more connective relationship with the Jewish people and the divine.