Shabbat Chol Moed Sukkot
Ecclesiastes
1:10-11 “Is there anything of which it may be said, ‘See, this is new?’
It has already been in old times, which were before us. There
is no remembrance of former things; neither will there be any remembrance of
things that are to come with those that shall come afterwards.”
The traditional Torah reading for the Shabbat during Sukkot is Leviticus
22:26-23:41, verses which recapitulate the list of holidays making up the
Jewish calendar, and verses in Exodus which recount Moses’ preparation of the
second set of tablets. During the festival of Sukkot, we also read the Book of
Ecclesiastes, when we are called upon to recognize the temporary nature of the
abundance of the fall harvest.
The
most famous part of Ecclesiastes (at least to those of us of a certain age) is
from Chapter 3, which includes the famous line “To everything there is a
season, and a time to every purpose under heaven” made famous by the Pete
Seeger song, “Turn, Turn, Turn” (recorded by the Byrds in 1965).
I wanted to look at the verses from the Book cited above for another reason.
Sukkot is a holiday during which we are commanded to be joyous. Yet don’t these
lines appear to be depressing?
It may be a frustrating truism, but the author of Ecclesiastes gives us wisdom:
what happened in the past is soon forgotten. As one ages one recognizes that things
younger generations see as revolutionary are nothing of the sort when measured
against the yardstick of millennia. Things may appear to be bleak at
present, but those of us with memories know that we have survived and overcome
even more perilous times. Perhaps the glimmer of hope for peace we
now see before us can help us to obey the command to be joyous during
Sukkot.
