Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach! Sukkot is a time for gratitude and joy, focusing on two particular blessings for which we must be grateful and express our joy over. These are the blessings of housing, which I spoke about to some degree on Rosh HaShana, and the blessings of the natural world. Our Sukkah dwelling reminds us of the precarity of our housing security, and of the homeless and nomadic lifestyles of our ancestors who wandered the desert for forty years seeking freedom and security for their descendants. So must we too seek to secure freedom and housing for all in our community. The blessings of the natural world are a bit more diffuse, and in some ways celebrated almost constantly in Judaism. While Judaism is not entirely an earth-based religion and culture - we love our books and study houses and abstract concepts of the Divine - we do have a tradition of celebrating nature and a liturgy that connects us ever to a holy land. 

Sukkot is notably a fall harvest festival, akin to the American Thanksgiving. It is a time to celebrate the food that the earth supplies us with, and the abundance of natural beauty. This is in part why we top our sukkah with a branch roof and why many decorate with fruits and gourds. Sukkot, especially the end of the festive week, marks the beginning of the rainy season and includes an often-forgotten water drawing ritual and celebration. The festival is a call back to the Temple days when after the animal and plant sacrifices were made, and after the wine libations poured, an additional water libation was poured over the holy altar on Sukkot. It may have also been a sort of Fall Cleaning time for the priests of the Temple. But the reason it captures the modern imagination and some communities continue to honor this tradition with a reinterpreted Simchat Beit HaShoeivah, is because Water is Life.

The catchphrase seems already disappeared from popular culture, the Mní Wičóni movement all but forgotten in most media. But the protests over pipelines that would intrude on the little remaining indigenous sovereign land and potentially contaminate the drinking water of disenfranchised communities continue. Additionally, while every once in a while someone pops up to remind us that Flint, MI still doesn’t have clean drinking water, now we can add Jackson, MS to the list of US cities that have poisoned water coming out of their faucets. Meanwhile, several states had drought warnings this summer, and climate scientists predict more consistent water shortages in future years. We are fortunate to live in a temperate, deciduous climate, not too close to the shoreline but never far from groundwater sources. Virginia will continue to be relatively safe from water crises and climate disaster for years to come. Many of our friends and proverbial neighbors in hotter, drier areas, as well as our frontline coastal fellows, will not be so lucky. Eventually, we too will face water damage as sea levels rise closer to our own backyards, hurricanes and tropical storms hit us harder as we become less “inland”, and temperatures will rise to be dangerously hot out. While we will not suffer the water shortages the southwestern and central states likely will, these sorts of storm surges bring their own ecological disasters. Mosquito season has gotten longer, bringing with it the dangers of diseases the pests carry. Floods can cause contaminated waters and clean waters to mix, bringing pesticides, wastewater, or other pollutants into the ocean systems or our drinking reserves. Thus Jackson, sitting right on a major reservoir and only about as far from the Gulf Coast as we are from the Atlantic Ocean, has a clean water crisis now. 

Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2 says: “At four times the world is judged: On Pesach, for the crops. On Shavuot, for the fruits of the tree. On Rosh Hashanah, all the world passes before the Holy One like sheep, as it says, ‘The One that fashions the hearts of them all, that considers all their doings.’ (Psalms 33:15) And on Sukkot, they are judged for the water.” So, tonight we are judged for water. What will we do about the water crises in our world? We can help educate others. We can advocate for conservationist policies on a local, state, or federal level, to help preserve water resources, protect them from pollution, and maintain safe wastewater treatment practices. We can recycle water - use that pasta cooking water to water your plants instead of dumping it down the drain. Get a raincatcher and purifier for personal use. We can also conserve water in our own homes by ensuring that faucets are turned off when not in use - including when brushing our teeth or in between ice trays we may be filling up to make ice. Sometimes a nice long hot shower or bath is the self-care we need, another important reminder I delivered over the High Holy Days, but we should limit those and be mindful of how long we are standing in the water dissociating during a regular morning shower. While the majority of water conservation and anti-pollution attempts must be done on a industrial or governmental level, because that’s where the majority of pollution and waste happens, we can still take small steps to help demonstrate our commitment to this effort for the powers that be and ensure that the large scale change necessary happens. 

This rainy season, let us pray not only for the rains necessary to recharge the soil after our autumn harvest, but also for safety from harsh rains, storm surges, floods, contaminated waters, or droughts. May we celebrate a Sukkot of peace and security, and a future of sustained bounty from the earth. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.