Page 30 - HaMizrachi #33 Sukkot 2021 USA

Quiet

Time

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ל״צז

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

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