I have a puzzle today. A word puzzle. And you all are going to help me solve it.

This is a portion that I know well. It was my Bat Mitzvah portion and is read three times a year. Shabbat during Pesach, Shabbat during Sukkot and in its natural rotation. It is the reason I became a rabbi. And I wrote my thesis on the 13 Attributes, a later a book.

But I have always been bothered by a couple of things. It would be easy to say that it is the portion for today because later in the portion it mentions Sukkot. But what is the link, if any between the 13 attributes…Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’chanun….and Sukkot. Why, when Moses was up on the mountain getting the second set of tablets and seeing the backside of G-d, did G-d continue with celebrate the festivals? And why does Sukkot not get mentioned by name, although it does in other places, even though it says there are three pilgrimage festivals.

Some of the answers:

• Because a sukkah is a home and it provides protection and yet is temporary.
• Because maybe G-d was finally tired of the Israelites who kept wandering through the desert and kvetched about everything and so Moses had to convince G-d that this was really G-d’s people and that they needed G-d’s protection.
• Just simply, because the Israelites were about to resume their wandering in the desert, in sukkot!

Rabbi Ben Bag Bag used to say, “Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it. Pore over it. Wax gray and old over it. Stir not from it.” (Pirke Avot 5:26)

So on this very text that I know so well, this morning, this is a new learning for me. And for you.

I think the connection has to do with the attribute of “Hain” which we often translate as grace. Now this isn’t easy stuff, and many Jewish philosophers and rabbis argue about whether “grace” is a Jewish thing or a Christian thing. Most of you probably know the song, “Amazing Grace” about the sea captain who wrote it after he hit “rock bottom”. It is not a whole lot different than what we studied with Jonah, who went down, yerida, first to Jaffa, then into the hold of the ship, then overboard, down, down, down to the bottom of the sea, where he was swallowed by the dag gadol, the giant fish. The fish provided by G-d. The fish that comes to teach us that G-d gives us second chances, and third and fourth ones. Grace is pretty amazing. That’s why I just ordered a new to me book by Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Amazing Chesed. But Chesed is another word, both in the 13 Attributes and sometimes translated similarly.

However, in the meantime, it seems clear to me that G-d’s saving grace seems to be for both Jews and Christians. For everyone.

So what is grace?

• A gift that maybe we didn’t merit. We can receive grace whether we deserve it or whether we earned it. Or not. It is different than a birthday present.
• We wondered about the different forms of the word. Graciousness. Like a gracious hostess. And we talked about the verse in a Woman of Valor, “Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears (or reveres) the Lord, she shall be praised.” So is it something fleeting?
• How then does the phrase, “There for the grace of G-d go I?” fit into this discussion. Is it that when we see someone in difficulties, we recognize that we too could be in that position, we can see ourselves in their shoes, so we are grateful for G-d’s grace that it is not us (at least at this time?)

It is something that “rains down”, how appropriate as we approach the end of Sukkot, and the blessing for geshem, rain. It is a blessing bestowed, like the phrase, “gomal chasidim tovim” in our Avot prayer. It is the free and unmerited favor of G-d, like we teach with the 13 attributes. G-d loves the person before the sin and even after the sin, that’s what the repetition of Adonai, Adonai teaches.

Now in the Latin, grace, and grateful come from the same Latin root—gratus. So it is appropriate to be grateful, to be thankful for that grace of G-d, for the bestowal of blessings that rain down on us, even if we don’t merit them. Even if we think we are not worthy. G-d thinks we are.

When I wrote my thesis, having looked at many of the classical sources, Gunther Plaut (A Modern Torah Commentary, page 663) said that hain is G-d’s helpful concern. Brown Driver Briggs defines the word as “gracious” And as an adjective, “hanun” it only applies to an attribute of G-d although it is related to hain, “to show favor, grace, “ as in matza hain, find favor, which also appears in this portion. As a noun, “Compassionate, favorable” and as a verb “to show favor or to be gracious with synonyms of yearn towards, long for, be merciful, compassionate, favorable, inclined towards. To find favor can either mean with people as in Proverbs 28:23 or with G-d as in Jeremiah 31:2” (Brown, Driver, Brigs, 336-337)

But we need to dig a little deeper. Hain is a two-letter Hebrew root, instead of the usual three. So we need to look at some of the other words derived from this root. From Hain we get Hanah, with the addition of the letter hey at the end. As in the verse from Genesis 26:17, And Isaac departed, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar and dwelt there. So somehow this verb means to pitch a tent, or to camp. Now we are getting closer to Sukkot! The noun form is “machaneh”, camp. So a tent or a camp is a measure of grace! Again, we are back at Sukkot.

And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave them light by night to these, so that the one came not near the other all night. (Exodus 14:20)

Perhaps more importantly is this measure of protection that we see in Psalms. “Be merciful unto me, Hanini, O G-d, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusts in You, in the shadow of Your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities are past.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/articles_grace.html

We can’t leave this without at least exploring chesed just a little bit since it too appears in the 13 Attributes. Chesed maybe the kindness or the lovingkindness of G-d that goes “beyond what humanity deserves” so something that isn’t merited as we said of hain. It too is not easy to define as Dr. Nelson Glueck said in his PhD thesis. However, we hope that if our actions are evenly balanced between virtue and sin, that G-d tips the scales of judgment toward the good. G-d tempers G-d’s own anger, G-d’s own judgment with the attribute of mercy.

Rabbi Arthug Segal teaches that some of our understand of G-d and grace becomes a kabbalistic, mystical concept. In the Talmud, Kiddushin 61b, it says “Even if 999 angels testify against humanity and only one speaks on their behalf, the Holy One, inclines the scales in humanity’s favor.” Everything that G-d does is for the good. G-d is continually raining down blessings and grace. There is no need to win or achieve grace because it is freely given to all of us, but we need to choose to accept it or reject it through our own actions. http://rabbiarthursegal.blogspot.com/2015/07/rabbi-arthur-segal-judaism-and-grace.html

As we approach the end of Sukkot and the end of the entire High Holy Day season, there is one more thing. During Ne’ilah, the concluding service of Yom Kippur, just before sunset, we keep saying that the gates are closing. And yet, we often say that the gates of repentance are never closed. G-d will always take us back. That’s an example of G-d’s grace. On Hoshanah Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot, we again beg G-d for mercy. That’s when our fate is really, really sealed. It is like a make-up day if you missed Yom Kippur—or like Pesach Sheini, the Second Passover for travelers, a month later if you missed it in the month of Nissan.

This then connects Passover to Sukkot and also links the stories together. When Moses was on that mountain, G-d wrapped G-d’s self in a tallit, and taught Moses the order of prayer. Rabbi Yohanan taught: were it not a written verse, it would be impossible to declare it. It teaches us that the Holy One dressed as a shaliach tzibbur, a prayer leader and showed Moses the order of the prayers. G-d said to him: when the people of Israel transgress, they should say to Me these words and I will forgive them. “The Lord, the Lord, it implies that I exist before you transgress and I am there after you transgress and repent. “A merciful and compassionate G-d.” Rav Yehudah explained :it is My covenant that the 13 attributes will not be left unanswered, as it is said, “Here I am establishing My covenant.” (Rosh Hashanah 17b)

A covenant. If you do x, I will do y. This covenant is an example of G-d’s hain, grace and how G-d rains down blessings, bestowing grace and compassion and mercy for all to receive and accept.