In the Dark Shadow of a Las Vegas Massacre (Sukkot 5778)

2010 Sukkah Made from Signs From the Homeless

Our school community held its weekly gathering on Monday in the dark shadow of Sunday's Las Vegas massacre in which more than 500 people were wounded and nearly 60 killed. 

There are no words adequate to make meaning of such a monstrous tragedy. We are stunned. We are angry. We are afraid. We are speechless. 

Yet, something about Las Vegas calls to mind a story often told by my colleague, Rabbi Eddie Feinstein, about his young daughter, Nessa's fear of alligators under her bed or monsters in her closet. Inspired by his story I shared its themes with
my students. For purposes of sharing his story, I took some liberties in retelling it.*

When Nessa was quite young a bedtime routine developed. Each night, Eddie would tuck her into bed, sing their bedtime prayers, kiss her goodnight her goodnight, and quietly slip out of the room. 

Each night as he was about halfway down the hall, Nessa would scream, "Abba!" He went back into her room. Nessa cried out, "There's an alligator under my bed!" Or, "there's a monster in the closet!"

He would turn on the light to check for alligators or monsters. Then, “Nessa, there’s nothing there,” he would tell her, “I checked.” “Now go to bed. Tomorrow is coming. Everything is safe!”

After an entire year reassuring Nessa there were no alligators or monsters, Eddie questioned this routine. He wondered, “Maybe Nessa is right -- not about real alligators or monsters -- but the real things in our world that feel a bit like alligators and monsters. About the real things in life that are scary or dangerous. “Am I right to reassure her that everything will be safe tomorrow?” he thought. 

Nessa doesn’t know the names of the alligators under the bed. She doesn’t know yet about cancer, or hurricanes, or mass shootings, or violence against people for no reason other than that they carry the name Jew or because of the color of their skin, or hold certain religious beliefs. But those monsters are real.

As teens, we begin to learn the names of some of these monsters. As grownups, we know them far too well. Still, as grownups, we still insist to our children that the world is safe enough to trust and feel safe, at least for the one night in front of us. 

Nearly every parent does a version of this -- assuring their children they are safe and that everything will be okay even when we are not 100% sure of either. We do it in order to help our children get to sleep at night. We do it in order to get ourselves out of bed in the morning. It is a kind of faith.

That kind of faith is at the heart of Sukkot, the Jewish fall harvest festival that features eating a week's worth of meals in a temporary hut or sukkah. Each sukkah has to be built as a balance of something sturdy enough to stand for the week of Sukkot, but not nearly as materially sturdy as the home we leave to eat in it. Each sukkah has to offer some protection like shade from the hot sun, but you have to be able to see the stars through its roof.

The ancient rabbis puzzled over the inherent meaning of the sukkah itself. The Torah narrative is quite spare: We use a sukkah to remind us our ancestors lived in sukkahs when they first left Egypt. (Lev. 23: 42-43) But why?

Two competing answers come from the rabbis of the 1st and 2nd centuries: from Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says the sukkah is to remind us of the Clouds of Glory that hovered over and protected our ancestors in the wilderness. But Rabbi Akiva says the sukkah is to remind us of the fragile booths in which our ancestors lived in the wilderness. (Talmud, Sukkah 11b)

For Eliezer, it is about protection and security. For Akiva, it is about fragility and vulnerability. For me, Eliezer and Akiva are both right. 

Following Akiva’s thinking, Sukkot encourages us to get out from behind our locked doors and sturdy homes and into a world that is unpredictable and a bit vulnerable. It is an antidote to losing our connection to the reality of nature -- sometimes harsh, often more beautiful than what is inside our homes. Sukkot comes to remedy the fear that would otherwise keep us from ever leaving the house. 

Following Eliezer’s thinking, Sukkot encourages us to have faith in the protection of our families, our communities, even divine protection. It is an antidote to otherwise paralyzing fear of an unpredictable world -- that others are watching out for us and have our backs. Sukkot comes to remedy the fear that would otherwise keep us from ever falling asleep. 

To get to bed each night and leave the house each day we need to hold both Akiva's and Eliezer's perspective -- accepting vulnerability and having faith in protection.  In other words, the sukkah is our encouragement to have faith and hope.

Sukkot comes to remind us that the only way to live in tension between vulnerability and security is to accept some modest shelter and enter the real world. Staying inside out of fear paralyzes us. And heading out into the world without any protection whatsoever endangers us. 

We navigate the world accepting the vulnerability of it -- even when it brings tears to our eyes. And we take comfort from security that comes in believing that protection and dependability are as near as our friends and others who have our backs -- even when we know they cannot always. In our world, these are expressions of faith and hope. This is the kind of faith and hope that get us to sleep at night and out of the bed in the morning. 

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*For a full version of Rabbi Feinstein's story, see Miryam Glazer's beautiful collection, Dancing on the Edge of the World: Jewish Stories of Faith, Inspiration, and Love p.11.