Here is another of my holiday d’vrei Torah (sermons). We need to welcome our guests.
Kabbalat Shabbat: To Welcome Shabbat. To Receive Shabbat.
The whole of the Friday night service called Kabbalat Shabbat is to welcome Shabbat and for us to receive it. It is the sign of the covenant between G-d and the people of Israel as we sing each week with “V’shamru.” We welcome Shabbat and the Shabbat angels and each other, and any mourners amongst us and the Shabbat bride and queen. And we welcome guests.
This month we have been focusing on welcoming guests, as part of our covenantal relationship to one another. In Hebrew we call this principle, hachnasat orchim, literally allowing guests to enter.
At Sukkot, the Harvest Festival, we welcome “Ushpizin” to our sukkot. Each night we welcome a different spiritual guest. In fact, the word ushpizin is really the Aramaic word for guest. First referred to in the Zohar in the late 13th century:
“When you sit in the sukkah, ‘the shade of faithfulness,’ the Shekhina spreads Her wings over you and… Abraham, five other righteous ones, and King David, make their dwelling with you…Thus you should rejoice with a shining countenance and every day of the festival together with these guests who lodge with you…” (Zohar Emor, 103b)
Each of these guests is linked to a spiritual quality, a G-dly character trait, one of the sepherot, the mystical aspects and emanation of G-d, that we would like to emulate:
- Day one: Abraham, Chesed
- Day two: Isaac, Gevurah, restraint, discipline
- Day three: Jacob, tiferet, beauty, harmony, truth
- Day four: Moses, netzach, victory, endurance, everlasting
- Day five: Aaron, hod, splendor, humility, hidden
- Day six: Joseph, Yesod, Foundation, Connection
- Day seven: David, Malchut, Sovereignty, Receptiveness, Leadership1
This teaching come from Rabbi Isaac Luria, the 16th century mystic of Sefat. The very same Rabbi Luria who gave us the structure for Kabbalat Shabbat, the very service we are doing tonight.
These days, we tend to invite women ushpizot as well. The seven women are based on the teaching in the Talmud Megilah 14a-b, naming seven women prophets: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah and Esther. Studying each of these women would make for a fascinating adult study class, but that would be for another time.
If you could invite anyone, living or dead, to join us in the sukkah tonight, who would it be?
Some of the answers included Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Columbus, several grandparents, It’s a good question.
The prayer for this welcoming has become:
“May it be Your will, Lord my God and God of my ancestors, to send Your presence to dwell in our midst and to spread over us the sukkah of Your peace, to encircle us with the majesty of Your pure and holy radiance. Give sufficient bread and water to all who are hungry and thirsty. Give us many days to grow old upon the earth, the holy earth, that we may serve You and revere You. Blessed by the Lord forever – amen, amen. Sarah, my exalted guest, may it please you to have all the exalted guests join me and you, along with Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah and Esther”
One of the people I would like to have would be Honi the Circle Drawer. We know the story of Honi and how he planted carob trees just as his ancestors planted for him. I’ve told the story of Honi and his drawing circles here but not recently. So on a night that it is a little damp, and just before we add the prayer for rain in our services, it bears repeating.
You see, some people think the lulav is like a Native American rain stick. Listen carefully to the sound.
The Talmud teaches in Ta’anit 19a that once there was a terrible drought in the land of Israel. It was already Adar, long past the end of Sukkot where we add the prayer for rain. Usually by now they were marking the end of the rainy season.
The people begged Honi the Circle Maker to pray. He prayed, but still no rain fell. He drew a circle in the dust and stood in the middle of it. Raising his hands to the heavens, he vowed, “G-d, I will not move from this circle until You send rain!” It began to sprinkle, just a few drops. The drops hissed on the hot stones. The people were not satisfied and complained, “This is only enough rain to release you from your vow.”
So Honi prayed again, “I asked for more than this trifling drizzle. I was asking for enough rain to fill wells, cisterns, ditches!” The heavens opened up and poured down rain in buckets. The parched earth began to flood. The cisterns overflowed. There was too much rain! The people of Jerusalem ran to the Temple Mount for safety. “Honi! Save us! We will all be destroyed like the generation of the Flood. Stop the rains!”
Honi again prayed. This time for the rains to stop. They did and he told the people to bring a thanksgiving offering to the Temple. Then Honi again prayed, and said to G-d, “This people that You brought out of Egypt can take neither too much evil or too much good. Please give them what they want.” This is the Goldilocks moment. Not too little. Not too much. Just right.
Then G-d sent a strong wind that blew away the fierce rains and the storm calmed. Shimon ben Shetakh, the head of the Sanhedrin wanted to put Honi in cherem, to excommunicate him, for his audacity, but decided against it, saying “What can I do against you, who nags G-d and G-d answers you, fulfilling your wish like a child who nags a parent and the parent fulfills his wish.”
Honi is not the only one who demands something of G-d. Abraham when he argues to spare Sodom and Gemorrah, Moses when he argues with G-d to take care of G-d’s people and not abandon them after the sin of the Golden Calf. Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev who demands that G-d take care of the people of Israel reminding G0d that Levi Yitzchak is G-d’s child. So praying boldly is a good thing in Judaism.
And then, just as we find with Honi, G-d’s grace, mercy compassion will rain down on us.
What about this rain stick—the lulav—the arbah minim, the Four Species. It is said that it represents the human body:
- the lulav, the palm is the spine,
- the hadass, myrtle, the eyes
- the aravah, the willow, the lips
- the etrog, the citron, the heart.
When we shake the lulav, we are using are whole selves.
Another explanation, is that each of the components represents a different kind of person:
- The lulav has taste but no smell like people who study Torah but don’t do good deeds.
- The myrtle has fragrant but has no taste, like people who do good deeds but do not study.
- The willow has neither taste nor smell like those who lack both study and good deeds
- The etrog has both taste and smell, like those who have both Torah and good deeds.
Taken all together, as we do when we shake the lulav and etrog, we have everything we need. It represents the whole community, entered into the covenant. This includes our guests, as we are commanded to welcome the stranger within our gates. In facet, to love the stranger within our gates. When we shake the lulav and the etrog, we are causing G-d to rain down, to bestow blessings upon us.