A Sukkot Magic Trick
(and all the Sukkot verses)
This is the Parashah that wasn't. Rabbi David was sick, and I was asked to prepare to read from the Torah if he didn't make it for this Sukkot Shabbat 👼. He got better, which is good, and this story (or the short form) went un-told. Easy to fix that.
Sukkot is a favorite holiday for my family and me. Building a sukkah (almost) every year for the last 40+, lighting it, decorating it, covering it in leafy branches (fragrant sassafrass this year, the original source of root beer), eating out in it with friends and family, a firepit glowing outside is just lovely.
 |
| Our Sukkah, 2024 |
But I’d like to add (for the record) something that happened to me regarding this holiday of Sukkot. I've seen something similar done as a card trick, a card appears in a person's pocket where none was before. But no one could pull off this little bit of magic that happened to me.
When I was 21, my walk with Messiah began. Though that's a worthy separate story, it wasn't long after that the scriptures, previously a meaningless series of histories, laws and predictions I once read as a teenager cover to cover, un-impressed, began to be a springboard for real world direction. It led to a decision to fold up shop on a small artistic cabinetry business I had stopped out of school to start up and return to school. Integral to that story is a practice I had started of memorizing and meditating on scripture,
“ Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path.” Psalm 119.105.
I decided that during that 1970's post-Vietnam era of radicalism, that nothing could be more radical than to find and follow God’s thoughts for my life. “Standing on the Word of God” became a discipline and an adventure.
I was positive that both a meditation on scripture, and the resonating promptings the Holy Spirit were leading me to return to school. I pulled up stakes, packed everything in my 61 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 station wagon (including my band saw, surface planter, and chests full of tools, and moved into an empty apartment, (with a huge basement for my shop) pending roommates. I was quite alone with my decision, a week before students would return. I went to the supermarket, packed the groceries in the Olds (I have a recurring dream that I still have that car and I am driving it on the highway, floating within its tons of Detroit steel magnificence, so content).
It was a nice night and realizing I had nothing but an empty apartment to return to, I just leaned against the car, and the gravity of my decision washed over me, to leave all my friends behind, end a business I really enjoyed and head back to university, where I knew no one, to chart a path into a profession and beyond. I had been in school for three years, stopped out for a year, and all my college friends, and my band had all had graduated and gone. It suddenly occurred how dark I felt, alone with my decision. I tried to chase the darkness of that moment, as I thought about a couple verses I had memorized and been meditating on, a scripture that is set during the holiday of Sukkot.
37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast of Sukkot, Yeshua stood and cried out, saying, “ If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
John 7:37-38
The words rang hollow compared to my dark mood, leaning on my car, standing in a litter strewn inner-city half empty parking lot. I wondered if my "radical" change had been a bridge too far, littered with unknowns.
I noticed that as I stood there, there was something under my foot. I had been standing there without moving for several minutes. What on earth could I be standing on? I looked down and saw that I was standing on a little book, face down on the asphalt. Its title: “Promise Book”. If you are familiar with that term, that’s a collection of verses from the Scriptures that are curated into categories as direction for life. I picked it up and it was open to a page whose left side, in large print, had that very verse from John 7:37, spoken at Sukkot, promising "rivers of living water"
Standing on the Word
I was LITERALLY standing on the Word of God. To be honest, I was more baffled than encouraged. But my doubts began to erode.
Yes, that little magic trick actually happened.
God has a number of compelling magic tricks. His little slight of hand of attraction between a man and a woman compels generation after generation to do the business of eternity, raise a family, and have a chance to change their world for the better. The warmth of a newborn that immediately seals a parent's dedication to an unknown child for a lifetime. The shadowed conjure where a covenant disappears into memory and death tells the tale of forevermore in starker and more awesome terms than we ever could.
Sukkot is a bit of magic - a lifetime of wandering in the desert, then a sudden fulfillment of coming into the land, like a rabbit out of a hat. We celebrate and worship in a rickety booth, so unlike a great sanctuary we build to try to memorialize our quest for God's presence. The sukkah disappears after a week of happiness with the promises of sweetness and fulfillment
"A feast of Sukkot ... because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful" Deut 16.15
חג סוכות שמח
All (most) of the references to Sukkot
For my own use, I cut-and-pasted all (or most) of the verses regarding Sukkot. No grand commentaries, I offer them only for your ease of reading. The highlights were mine, ignor them if you wish.
13 “You shall celebrate the Feast of Booths seven days after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and your wine vat; 14 and you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your towns. 15 Seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the LORD your God in the place which the LORD chooses, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
16 “Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. 17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you.
Deuteronomy 16:13-17
Deuteronomy 16:13-14
חַ֧ג הַסֻּכֹּ֛ת תַּעֲשֶׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֑ים בְּאׇ֨סְפְּךָ֔ מִֽגׇּרְנְךָ֖ וּמִיִּקְבֶֽךָ׃ DT 16.13
After the ingathering from your threshing floor and your vat, you shall hold the Feast of Booths for seven days.
וְשָׂמַחְתָּ֖ בְּחַגֶּ֑ךָ אַתָּ֨ה וּבִנְךָ֤ וּבִתֶּ֙ךָ֙ וְעַבְדְּךָ֣ וַאֲמָתֶ֔ךָ וְהַלֵּוִ֗י וְהַגֵּ֛ר וְהַיָּת֥וֹם וְהָאַלְמָנָ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר בִּשְׁעָרֶֽיךָ׃
You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your communities.
שִׁבְעַ֣ת יָמִ֗ים תָּחֹג֙ לַיהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בַּמָּק֖וֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֑ה כִּ֣י יְבָרֶכְךָ֞ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ בְּכֹ֤ל תְּבוּאָֽתְךָ֙ וּבְכֹל֙ מַעֲשֵׂ֣ה יָדֶ֔יךָ וְהָיִ֖יתָ אַ֥ךְ שָׂמֵֽחַ׃
You shall hold a festival for your God יהוה seven days, in the place that יהוה will choose; for your God יהוה will bless all your crops and all your undertakings, and you shall have nothing but joy.
10 Then Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place which He will choose, you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing. 12 Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law. 13 Their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”
Deuteronomy 31:10-13
Some comment that this was literally true: a great gathering of Jews stood and listened to the entirety of the Law being read. Clearly this practice was clearly forgotten for a long time since everyone in the regathered Jerusalem wept at what substandard Jews they were for not having done this… Neh 8, see below *** 700 years?).
But they certain DID gather and have the whole law read and restarted doing the commandments ON SUKKOT at the rededication of the temple
13 Then on the second day the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe that they might gain insight into the words of the law. 14 They found written in the law how the LORD had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month. 15 So they proclaimed and circulated a proclamation in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hills, and bring olive branches and wild olive branches, myrtle branches, palm branches and branches of other leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written.” 16 So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17 The entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them. The sons of Israel had indeed not done so from the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day. And there was great rejoicing. 18 He read from the book of the law of God daily, from the first day to the last day. And they celebrated the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to the ordinance. Nehemiah 8:13-18
*** So it wasn't just about the captivity - Jews had not been keeping Sukkot (or the whole law?) since the 13 century BCE, when Joshua entered the land until the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the exile in 538 BCE …. So almost 700 years ???
Leviticus 23:33-44
33 Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 34 “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘On the fifteenth of this seventh month is the Feast of Booths for seven days to the LORD. 35 On the first day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work of any kind. 36 For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to the LORD; it is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work.
37 ‘These are the appointed times of the LORD which you shall proclaim as holy convocations, to present offerings by fire to the LORD—burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings, each day’s matter on its own day— 38 besides those of the sabbaths of the LORD, and besides your gifts and besides all your votive and freewill offerings, which you give to the LORD.
39 ‘On exactly the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the LORD for seven days, with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day. 40 Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. 41 You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, 43 so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.’” 44 So Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the LORD.
Leviticus 23:33-44
Exodus 23:16
16 Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. 17 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD.
Exodus 23:16-17
Psalms 120-135
Said when making Aliyah, going up to Jerusalem three times per year, the “Psalms of Ascent”
These are associated with being read on Sukkot.
TheTorah.com is a clearly Jewish site. In trying to understand Sukkot it refers to the Mishnah tractate “Sukkah”. Then adds…
“Nevertheless, we have earlier material which either references or alludes to the Sukkot practices in the Temple during this period. Three of these sources are in the New Testament—two in the Gospel of John and one in Revelation—where these Sukkot rituals play a vital theological role.”
Yeshua comes to Jerusalem during Sukkot alone. He sends his (unbelieving? ) brothers on ahead of Him.
5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him. John 7:5...9 Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee. John 7:9
Since there were already death plots against Him
1 After these things Yeshua was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jewish leaders were seeking to kill Him. John 7:1
In Jn 7.37, Yeshua is referring to an outpouring of the Spirit of God. This was of couse an actual practice of illuminating the temple and a pouring out of water from the temple, the details of which we don’t know, which has been described as In fact, this pouring out of water in the temple was a 2nd temple practice at Sukkot
8 And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.
9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one. Zechariah 14:8-9
“All who survive of all those nations that came up against Jerusalem shall make a pilgrimage year by year to bow low to the King Lord of Hosts, and to observe the Festival of Booths. Any of the earth’s communities that does not make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to bow low to the King Lord of Hosts shall receive no rain” (Zechariah 14:16–17
This last days outpouring is also described in (Ezek 47:1-12)
Ezek 47:1 He led me back to the entrance of the Temple, and I found that water was issuing from below the platform of the Temple — eastward, since the Temple faced east — but the water was running out at the south of the altar, under the south wall of the Temple
An interesting link from the (Jewish) theTorah.com …
https://www.thetorah.com/article/sukkot-in-the-new-testament-from-lulav-and-hoshana-to-palm-sunday
“As it now stands, the New Testament is a collection of texts that is scripture for Christians. Nevertheless, these texts were composed in a predominantly Jewish milieu. In fact, most of the authors of the New Testament texts were Jews who accepted the Torah as authoritative, worshiped at the Jewish Temple, and also believed that Jesus was a (the) Jewish messiah.”
Comments
Post a Comment