Page 27 - HaMizrachi # 23 Sukkot Simchat Torah 2020 USA

GLOBAL RELIGIOUS LEADERS

Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel

Eternity Within the Moment 1

ransience is at the heart of Our parents said, “Before you blink, stuff it into our pocket. Because just
the sukkah experience. The you already have grandchildren,” as it is sublime, it is also fleeting,
Tneed to feel it’s not a perma- and before we know it, we’ll find temporary, ungraspable. Every brief
nent home influenced a multitude of ourselves saying similar things to blossom, every autumn leaf, every
halachic discussions: its maximum our children. When we raised our sunset… arouses yearning, longing,
and minimum height, the materi- first son, every stage seemed like an almost distress. For it lives forever
als it can be made from, the obliga- eternity. We couldn’t imagine his in the passing moment (if we plant it
tion of a mezuzah, and many others. teeth would ever come through. We within us), and then… it’s gone!
When you live in an impromptu hut, bought baby clothes very carefully
you remember the trials of the wil- without understanding that at those Are “fleeting days” empty days, with
derness and the wondrous Divine sizes they’d last a day and a half. no hope or expectation? No! Don’t
Providence that protected us along From child to child we internalize interpret ל ֵ ב ֲ ה as futile! We were
the way. that babyhood just whooshes by. not given days of futility to waste
That we need to take in the smell away on this earth, for what was the
A major principle of Sukkot is ּוב ְ ׁש ֵּ ת because in another moment it won’t reason to invest in love if our days
ּורּוד ָּ ת ןי ֵ ע ְּ כ – dwell in the sukkah as be the same… are nonsensical? Kohelet tells us:
you would in your own home. This treasure the days we have together,
is why we drag our beloved sofa out When Rabbi Yochanan finds Rabbi because life is temporary, and hence
into the yard, eat our meals outside Elazar crying on his deathbed so valuable. Fill your days with love
and sleep in the sukkah as well. (Berachot 5b), he asks him why he and good… “enjoy life”!
is so distraught. For the Torah, you
We make a huge effort to feel didn’t learn? For your livelihood? We are permanent tenants in our
permanent within the temporary. To For losing children? And Rabbi temporary sukkah. Through that,
dwell in the truth, within the passing we understand nothing is really
moment. Elazar answers, “I’ll manage without permanent.
everything you asked about. But your
ל ֶ ב ָֽ ה לֹ ּ כ ַ ה ...ת ֶ ל ֶ הֹק ר ַ מ ָ א םי ִ ל ָ ב ֲ ה ל ֵ ב ֲ ה – incredible beauty, Rabbi Yochanan, Yet even when we return into our
“Futility of futilities said Kohelet… that like us all will decompose and homes we can still observe ןי ֵ ע ְּ כ ּוב ְ ׁש ֵּ ת
everything is futile (Kohelet 1:2). turn to dust, for that I cry!” And ּורּוד ָּ ת. We can experience the total
The word ל ֶ ב ָֽ ה (variously translated Rabbi Yochanan shocks us with his beauty of the moment… of every
as futility, emptiness, vapor) appears reply: “For that indeed you should moment, while it lasts. We can
no fewer than 38 times in Megillat cry!” And they both wept, over the appreciate and value all the good in
Kohelet. However, none of those fleeting nature of beauty and the our personal, family and communal
translations are accurate for the death that overcomes us all. lives. And we can remember the
meaning of the word here. sukkot in the desert and realize the
When we stand before a stunning
Transience. Everything is transient. sunrise or sunset, we are awestruck. abundance and goodness we are
enjoying here and now in Eretz Yisrael.
Everything will pass. Everything Something about that beauty strokes
ends and moves on. It’s neither good eternity, stems from eternity. Such
nor bad. Neither judgmental nor an abundance of beauty is beyond
negative. It’s a fundamental truth us. So we do our best to bathe in 1 Adapted from Rabbanit Fraenkel’s “The Pre-
Shlomo HaMelech lays down at the the pleasure because it’s going to ciousness of Transience” (HaMizrachi 5779).
outset of his book: our lives on earth disappear any second. We snap a
are finite. Short-lived. Nothing lasts photo but sense how pathetic that is. Rabbanit Rachelle Fraenkel teaches Torah
forever, and certainly not us. We can’t just fold this splendor and at midrashot in Israel.

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