Sukkot as “an Odd Duck?”

Aaron Keyak — October 1, 2009 – 4:02 pm | Comments (0) Add a comment

Isaac Shalev, CEO of Birthright Israel Next, has an insightful piece in The Jewish Week about the similarities and differences of Sukkot and Thanksgiving. Shalev begins by observing that “Sukkot is an odd duck” where as Thanksgiving “makes a lot of sense,” and continues to talk about Jewish identity and culture. It is well worth reading.

An excerpt:

Sukkot, by contrast [to Thanksgiving], reverses all of these connections. Rather than staying indoors, we build a woefully inadequate shelter that lets the rain in, and we shiver our way through our holiday meals. The Four Species of lulav, etrog, hadassim and aravot that symbolize the holiday are for the most part inedible, hardly a reflection of the bounty of the harvest. And aside from the harvest, Sukkot is a commemoration of 40 years that the Israelites wandered through the desert, not their eventual arrival in the land of Canaan.

What Thanksgiving and Sukkot both share is an emphasis on opening our home to guests. The Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest travel weekend of the entire year, as family and friends unite to celebrate the holiday. On Sukkot, many Jews embrace the mystical custom of Ushpizin, and extend symbolic invitations to Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Miriam, and the other heroes and heroines of the Bible. More concretely, people open their Sukkah to friends and neighbors, and particularly to those who do not have a Sukkah of their own.

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