Tishri, again
Sorry about that. But let me launch into this post, which touches Californian Jews, Assisian travelers, and everything else besides.
So again we begin with an Inland Empress post:
But there I was on a rainy Monday watching water cascade off palm fronds atop a sukkah, the hut we're supposed to build to commemorate something or other about wandering in the desert and eating sand. Er, citrus.
Anyway.
The rabbi was chassidic, so he wasn't letting us off easy. We had to wait until the rain cleared, the tarp was lifted off the flimsy thatching and the tables toweled off. It was a pleasant dinner, the prayers weren't too tedious and the rabbi's kids are an easygoing, funny lot....
At this point I commented about my lack of knowledge of the Jewish festival cycle:
I have to confess that even after reading through the Books of Moses several times, I *still* don't have all of the feasts straight. (And of course you have to go to Maccabees, which isn't even *in* my Bible, to find out about the one Jewish festival that most of us Gentiles have heard about (well, not counting Pentecost).
Two important points to note:
- Yes, I did leave off a right paren in my comment.
- From the Lutheran perspective, I of course made the sola scriptura assumption that everything about every holiday can be found in the Bible itself.
Several feasts are discussed in Leviticus 23:
- The Sabbath, which is identified as a "feast" (at least in NIV)
- The Passover and Unleavened Bread ("5 The LORD's Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. 6 On the fifteenth day of that month the LORD's Feast of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. 7 On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. 8 For seven days present an offering made to the LORD by fire. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work.")
- Firstfruits ("11 He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.")
- Feast of Weeks (which I know by its European name, Pentecost; "15 From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. 16 Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD.")
- Feast of Trumpets ("24 Say to the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.")
- Day of Atonement ("27 The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present an offering made to the LORD by fire.")
- Feast of Tabernacles ("34 Say to the Israelites: 'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD's Feast of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days.")
If you want to understand how these Jewish festivals are celebrated today, it's best to go to another source.
Now I know that some of the other books list the feasts slightly differently, but let's go with this one. Let's find out why the Empress got so wet:
The Festival of Sukkot begins on Tishri 15, the fifth day after Yom Kippur. It is quite a drastic transition, from one of the most solemn holidays in our year to one of the most joyous. Sukkot is so unreservedly joyful that it is commonly referred to in Jewish prayer and literature as Z'man Simchateinu...the Season of our Rejoicing....
Historically, Sukkot commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Agriculturally, Sukkot is a harvest festival and is sometimes referred to as Chag Ha-Asif...the Festival of Ingathering.
The word "Sukkot" means "booths," and refers to the temporary dwellings that we are commanded to live in during this holiday in memory of the period of wandering. The Hebrew pronunciation of Sukkot is "Sue COAT," but is often pronounced as in Yiddish, to rhyme with "BOOK us." The name of the holiday is frequently translated "Feast of Tabernacles," which, like many translations of Jewish terms, isn't very useful. This translation is particularly misleading, because the word "tabernacle" in the Bible refers to the portable Sanctuary in the desert, a precursor to the Temple, called in Hebrew "mishkan." The Hebrew word "sukkah" (plural: "sukkot") refers to the temporary booths that people lived in, not to the Tabernacle....
The festival of Sukkot is instituted in Leviticus 23:33 et seq. No work is permitted on the first and second days of the holiday....Work is permitted on the remaining days. These intermediate days on which work is permitted are referred to as Chol Ha-Mo'ed, as are the intermediate days of Passover.
And to celebrate properly, you obviously need a booth.
And what does Chabad say?
The Torah commands, "For seven days you shall dwell in sukkos." In defining this mitzvah, our Sages state, "You must live [in the sukkah] just as you live [in your home]." For the seven days of the holiday, all of the daily routines of our life must be carried out in the sukkah. As our Sages explain: "For all of these seven days, one should consider the sukkah as one's permanent dwelling, and one's home as temporary.... A person should eat, drink, relax... and study in the sukkah."...
Our Rabbis explain that through dwelling in the sukkah we will merit the rebuilding of the Beis HaMikdash, as is implied by the verse, "And His sukkah will be in [Jeru]salem." The ultimate fusion between the material and the spiritual will take place in the Era of the Redemption and in particular, in the Beis HaMikdash, where the Divine Presence will be openly revealed. May this take place in the immediate future.
So my uneducated guess is that this present period is considered to be a wilderness period, before entry into a promise.
But if you search a bit, you'll find that Messianic Jews and others have a somewhat different emphasis about the whole thing:
Spiritually the celebration of Tabernacles represents the fullness of Christ in His Church. It reminds us that He is our shelter and our refuge in the time of storm:
"For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his TABERNACLE shall he hide me; (Ps. 27:5).
"And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the TABERNACLE (dwelling) of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, (Rev. 21:3).
(Of course, non-Christians would be valid in noting that these verses do not refer to "booths.")
And the book of John has an interesting connection between this Feast and Jesus:
Interestingly, it was at this very celebration of Tabernacles, during the pouring out of water and prayers for the latter rain, that we read:
"In the last day, that great day of the feast, (Tebernacles/SimchatTorah) Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (St. John 7:37-38).
I was trying to find Muslim comments on Sukkot, but could not. (I'm not sure what the Muslim position is on the festivals in the Books of Moses.) However, I did find this interesting little tidbit:
During October 2005--and then again in the fall of 2006 and 2007--a confluence of sacred moments in several different traditions invites us to pray with or alongside each other and to work together for peace, justice, human rights, and the healing of our wounded earth....
To begin with, two strands of time that are celebrated in two communities...are this fall woven together in a way not seen for three decades: The sacred Muslim lunar month of Ramadan and the sacred Jewish lunar month of Tishrei, which includes the High Holy Days and Sukkot, both begin Oct. 3-4.
But there is more: Oct. 4 is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi; October 2 is Mahatma Gandhi's birthday and Worldwide (Protestant/Orthodox) Communion Sunday. And in mid-October, parallel to Sukkot, there are major Sikh, Buddhist, and Hindu festivals.
Remembering Francis of Assisi is more to the point today than many may realize. For at the very moment when almost all of Christian Europe was calling for Crusades, Francis was one of the few Christians of his day who opposed the Crusades, who learned in a serious way from Muslim teachers....
OK, since I seem to be digressing anyway, let's digress a little further. Francis' views are a little muddied:
How useful is it to condemn wars that were supported by great saints like Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena, John of Capistrano, even possibly Francis of Assisi, however abhorrent the ethical principles on which they were based appear to be to us? Ought we not rather challenge the widespread sentimental and unhistorical assumptions that on the one hand Christianity is an unambiguously pacific religion and on the other that Christian justifications of force have been consistent?
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
At the second general chapter (May, 1219) Francis, bent on realizing his project of evangelizing the infidels, assigned a separate mission to each of his foremost disciples, himself selecting the seat of war between the crusaders and the Saracens. With eleven companions, including Brother Illuminato and Peter of Cattaneo, Francis set sail from Ancona on 21 June, for Saint-Jean d'Acre, and he was present at the siege and taking of Damietta. After preaching there to the assembled Christian forces, Francis fearlessly passed over to the infidel camp, where he was taken prisoner and led before the sultan. According to the testimony of Jacques de Vitry, who was with the crusaders at Damietta, the sultan received Francis with courtesy, but beyond obtaining a promise from this ruler of more indulgent treatment for the Christian captives, the saint's preaching seems to have effected little....
Here's another account of what happened between Francis and the Sultan:
[Francis] was given a pass through the enemy lines, and spoke to the Sultan, Melek-al-Kamil. Francis proclaimed the Gospel to the Sultan, who replied that he had his own beliefs, and that moslems were as firmly convinced of the truth of Islam as Francis was of the truth of Christianity. Francis proposed that a fire be built, and that he and a moslem volunteer would walk side by side into the fire to show whose faith was stronger. The Sultan said he was not sure that a moslem volunteer could be found. Francis then offered to walk into the fire alone. The Sultan who was deeply impressed but remained unconverted. Francis proposed an armistice between the two warring sides, and drew up terms for one; the Sultan agreed, but, to Francis's deep disappointment, the Christian leaders would not....
An odd incident in centuries of disagreement:
No one who has lived or traveled in the Middle East can be unaware of the lingering resentment felt toward the "Latins," as the Crusaders are called....
Seen from another perspective, the crusades were but a delayed reaction to earlier Muslim aggression. Beginning with the fall of Jerusalem in 636, Muslim armies captured, blitzkrieg-like, all of the major urban centers of early Christianity--Antioch, Damascus, Alexandria, and Carthage (the city of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine). In 1453, Constantinople itself fell to the Ottoman Turks, the ruling force in the Muslim world at that time. During the Reformation, the armies of Islam in the 1520s were pressing on the gates of Vienna. They continued to do so periodically until they were finally turned back in 1683. Leaders of the Christian West were not being paranoid when they saw their civilization threatened by militant Islam.
The crusades were a violent, sporadic, and ultimately ineffectual response to this threat....
In 1099, Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. They slaughtered all Muslims and Jews, including women and children. They converted the Dome of the Rock into a church. This victory was short-lived, however, as the famous general Saladin recaptured the Holy City in 1187....
In the early years of the Reformation, when it seemed that Europe might be run over by the Muslim armies of the Ottoman Turks, there was much talk about recruiting soldiers for a new crusade. Although he was no pacifist, Martin Luther was opposed to this idea. The church should not fight with the sword, he said. There are other weapons it must wield, another kind of warfare it should wage, and thus it "must not mix itself up with the wars of the emperor and the princes." What if we sent evangelists rather than warriors to the Turks? he asked. Perhaps some of the Muslims there would be converted "when they see that Christians surpass the Turks in humility, patience, diligence, fidelity, and such like virtues."...
In 1900, there were 200 million Muslims in the world. Samuel Zwemer, the great scholar-missionary, estimated that since five out of six Muslims at that time were in countries under British rule, it would be only a matter of time before almost all would become Christians. Zwemer set forth his ideas in a book titled The Disintegration of Islam....
But Islam did not disintegrate in the British Empire, or even in Britain itself:
The number of Muslims in Britain is generally put at around 1.5 million, though some community groups suggest it could be nearer two million.
Perhaps half came originally from Pakistan, with the Middle East and North Africa accounting for around a quarter. Several hundred thousand originated in Bangladesh, with India also contributing significant numbers.
The largest Muslim communities are in Greater London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Lancashire and central Scotland. Most belong to the Sunni tradition of Islam, which accounts for 90% of Muslims worldwide. Only a small proportion of British Muslims are Shi'as.
And no, that does NOT necessarily bring us full circle to Mr. "A-Tone" (you know who I'm talking about). Or maybe it does. Or maybe it doesn't (emphasis mine):
Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, and his son, Wallace (Warith) Deen Muhammad, assumed leadership of the movement. Warith Deen Muhammad recognised the importance of bringing the Nation of Islam into the mainstream of Islam and immediately began to difficult process of closing the gaps between his brother's doctrines and orthodox Islam, the Quranic teachings (of a) world Muslim community, rather than as a strictly black nationalist movement....
Warith Deen Muhammad had studied Arabic, the Qur'an, and Islamic law for many years, and used what he had learned in the personal title he now assumed Mujaddid, renewer of the faith....In 1985 the movement was officially integrated into the general Muslim community in the United States. Its members are now known simply as Muslims.
Under Warith D. Muhammad's leadership, temples became Masjid (pl. Masajid) or mosques; ministers became Imam's; and the official newspaper Muhammad Speaks became the Bilalian News, later The American Muslim Journal, and now Muslim Journal. The World Community of Islam in the West achieved long-awaited public recognition from immigrant Muslims....
Not all members of Elijah Muhammad's movement agreed with the changes his son introduced. One significant segment, led by Minister Louis Farrakhan, has continued to espouse Elijah's original teachings, and has maintained the Nation of Islam's name as well as its basic organisational structure. Farrakhan preaches that blacks world-wide are oppressed by whites, and seeks a separate state for African-Americans.
Regarding the Muslim Journal:
Muslim Journal resolves to represent the concept of a free press as iterated by Imam W. Deen Mohammed: To be a newspaper that protects the rights of the big and small, one aware of itself, its size, its growth, its power to influence, refusing to be a monopolizer. It is a newspaper that will not allow personal interest of individuals, be they owners of the press or not, to hurt the professional interest. It will hold on to noble aims even in the face of the powerful and wealthy, because a free press is a clean press, one serving freedom of choice by promoting the excellence among free choices.
So what does W. Deen Mohammed say about the Jews? (See, I'm coming full circle here.) Here's what he said in 1983:
Islam, the religion of peace, wants peace for the whole world of mankind, for the human family. We are to promote peace, not only for ourselves but peace for the world. The religions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism are not unconnect-ed; they are connected. If these religions are connect-ed, then certainly the adher-ents to these religions and who believe in them are also connected....
When we look at Islam in its most important features, we see that Islam is very much like the Christian ide-als and very much like the Jewish ideals. G-d says to us in our Holy Book: "You will find among those who call themselves Christians those who believe in G-d and pro-mote justice and fair deal-ings." It says the same of the Jews....
Dr. Izzeiddin of Egypt and a few others have called them "Heavenly Religions." There are Christians and Jews who also refer to Judaism, Christianity and Islam as Heavenly Reli-gions. I understand that to mean that they were revealed or descended down to man as communication from G-d....
As the learned thinker in Islam, Maulana Maududi, who passed away some 15 years ago, said, "Islam is an idea for the reform of the world."
As a student of the Bible and of Christian beliefs, I know that Christianity too is an idea for the reform of the world. And I understand the Guidance of the Torah revealed to Moses, peace be upon him, for the Jews and other prophets that they received, their messages were to guide them to more and more understanding of an idea that was for the reform of the whole world.
These great religions are kindred, and we have other religions too we have to acknowledge. These reli-gions though are very close-ly related and follow each other. Christianity came behind Judaism and Islam came behind Christianity.
We have to accept that these religions are in compe-tition with one another, also. And G-d recognizes that, as G-d says, "Go as in a race, in competition, to reach a point or a destination, after all that is good."
G-d is telling us, yes. He wants us to be in competi-tion with one another. "Mus-lims, now that I have given My Covenant to you, I want you to be in competition with the good communities and excellent leadership that is in these communities."
Be in a healthy competi-tion. That is what is meant by "go after all that is good." So this makes us friends in competition, not enemies. We are going after the same good ends and same good life, so we are friends in competition.
At this point, I would like to mention, again, the friend of my father who also became a friend or acquain-tance of mine, the learned scholar of Egypt who has served governments and states, the scholar Ibrahim Ezzeddin.
Ibrahim Ezzeddin agreed to be interviewed by the magazine of the Focolare Movement, a very big movement headed by a very big blessed lady as their founder and leader, Chiara Lubich.
When he was interviewed and asked about the religious tolerance and problems we have for Christianity and Islam, he said: "Had it not been for political interest instigating division and hos-tilities between us, we would not today have these prob-lems."
I do believe that. And we do have leaders with great minds from the Islamic world and Islamic countries, at least from the religious leadership, and pious men and good men working with Christian leadership and Jewish leadership and other leaders of the great faith communities on this planet, so we can get to know each other again.
And it is without politics and governments interfering, so that we can see that we are one family under G-d.
What G-d gave to one. He gave to the other. And that is help for the good life that He wants for all of us. Thank you. Peace. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
So Medina was a booth, and the upper room was a booth, and all are happy.
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