Page 24 - HaMizrachi Australia Sukkot 5781

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ל״צז

ukkot represents more clearly that everyone ought to embrace the Adam and Chavah broke the first pro-
than any other festival the one true religion, their own, and that hibition. Kayin, the first human child,
dualities of Judaism. The four those who do not are denied the bless- became the first murderer. Within a
Sspecies (lulav, etrog, hadassim ings of eternity. remarkably short space of time, all
and aravot) are a symbol of the land Judaism disagrees. For this it was flesh had corrupted its way on earth,
of Israel, while the sukkah reminds us derided for many centuries, and to the world was filled with violence, and
of exile. The four species are a ritual some degree it still is today. Why, if it only one man, Noach, found favour in
of rain, while eating in the sukkah represents religious truth, is it not to G-d’s eyes. After the Flood, G-d made
depends on the absence of rain. be shared with everyone? If there is a covenant with Noach, and through
Above all, though, there is the tension only one G-d, why is there not only one him with all humanity, but after the
between the universality of nature and way to salvation? There is no doubt hubris of the builders of the Tower of
the particularity of history. There is that if Judaism had become an evange- Bavel, G-d chose another way. Having
an aspect of Sukkot – rainfall, harvest, lising, conversion-driven religion – as established a basic threshold in the
climate – to which everyone can relate, it would have had to, had it believed in form of the Noachide Laws, He then
but there is another – the long journey universalism – there would be many chose one man, one family, and even-
through the wilderness – that speaks more Jews than there are today. A tually one nation, to become a living
to the unique experience of the Jewish recent study (the Pew Report, under- example of what it is to exist closely
people. taken in 2015) found that there are an and continuously in the presence of
This tension between the universal estimated 2.3 billion Christians, 1.8 G-d. There are, in the affairs of human-
and the particular is unique to Juda- billion Muslims and only 14 million kind, universal laws and specific exam-
ples. The Noachide covenant consti-
ism. The G-d of Israel is the G-d of all Jews. The disparity is vast.
humanity, but the religion of Israel is Judaism is the road less travelled, tutes the universal laws. The way of
not the religion of all humanity. It is because it represents a complex truth life of Avraham and his descendants
is the example.
conspicuous that while the other two that could not be expressed in any
Abrahamic monotheisms, Christianity other way. The Torah tells a simple What this means in Judaism is that
and Islam, borrowed much from Juda- story. G-d gave humans the gift of the righteous of all the nations have a
ism, they did not borrow this. They freedom, which they then used not to share in the World to Come (Sanhedrin
became universalist faiths, believing enhance creation but to endanger it. 105a). In contemporary terms it means

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