The Jewish Dichotomy

Sukkot Intermediate Shabbat

Ex. 33:12 – 34:26

34:6-7 “…The Lord! The Lord! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.”

     On the Shabbat during Sukkot, we traditionally read the section of Exodus which transpires immediately after the incident of the Golden Calf. Moses is back up on the mountain and carves the second set of tablets. He asks to “see” God’s Presence. He is placed in a cleft in the rock, and he “sees” God’s “back.” God then reveals His attributes to Moses (34:6-7) in the verses cited here.

     If these words sound familiar, it’s because we recited the first verse countless times during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (through the words “transgression and sin” before the semi-colon). In the liturgy, we do not continue with the phrase “yet He does not remit all punishment…” nor include the visitation of punishment on subsequent generations. One can argue (as Rabbi Tzvi Marx did during this past Yom Kippur at my congregation in Chevy Chase MD) that this takes the kindness and mercy of God  we are so fervently seeking entirely out of context!

     On the High Holidays, it is of course comforting to focus on God’s mercy and forgiveness when we are in the midst of multiple repetitions of the countless ways we have sinned. But on Sukkot, when we are commanded to celebrate and be joyous, our reading provides us with a reminder that all is not sweetness and light.

     This, I think, describes a dichotomy in Judaism which is as inescapable as it is mysterious. At the somber times, we focus on God’s forgiveness and mercy; in happy times, we focus on the reality of evil that is carried through the generations. Perhaps this is a yin and yang of our tradition: light and darkness, righteousness and sinfulness, forgiveness and punishment. Both are parts of our reality, as our liturgy and texts underscore. Life is as precarious as fiddler on the roof, and as flimsy as a sukkah, but the fiddler’s music can be beautiful and the sukkah can be a place of great joy.