Keeping Ethno-Religious Rituals For Survival

ʻO ka ʻŌlelo ke Kaʻā o ka Mauli.

Language is the fiber that binds us to our cultural identity.

שפה היא הסיב שמחבר אותנו לזהות התרבותית שלנו.

The personal flag of this island Jew.

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Wave the lulav and etrog in the six directions for seven days, and know the joy of all our ancestors!

ANE Judeans, like their Canaanite neighbors, 12th century BCE to 6th century BCE, used to build Sukkot -booths made of branches – on the roof of the Temples for the Tishrei Festival of Booths. The purpose was to provide housing, originally, for YHWH god and his pantheon of gods and godesses, and housing for the gathering of the Jewish priests and priestesses – who conducted this ceremony of festival joy and eating that was engaged in after the yearly harvest.

So it is now, to this very next Sukkot Festival day, 2021 CE, Jews *still* build festival huts – preferably, on top of a roof, as in days of old – to reside in and eat in and celebrate in-and-around, as a matter of Jewish ethno-ritual. We wave lulav and etrog daily for seven days in the six directions, invoking the coming yearly rains and a great harvests cycle. But, how and when did Sukkah building become a ritual required of families and/or community in the places they reside, rather than at the Temple?

Hint, it started *earlier* than the writing of Common Era Talmudic halacha (Jewish “Oral Law”), in the first centuries of CE/A.D.. Though Sukkah booths were still constructed around the 2nd Temple to YHWH in Jerusalem by pilgrimaging Jews to reside in during the festival, the teachings of Ezra was that all Jews were supposed to dwell in the booths no matter where they are in Judean-Israel (6th century BCE). And, so to this day, this ethno-national ritual.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-origins-of-sukkot

The Origins of Sukkot
The connection between the Israelite festival of Sukkot in the temple and the Ugaritic new year festival and its dwellings of branches for the gods.

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Now that the הפסקה “pause” is over, … for Jews with less than a *traditional* מסורתי understanding of this ritual of the Six Directions during Sukkot (and, blessed be, the *interested* non-Jews), please שמע “listen”!

Four Kinds, Six Directions: Meditation in Movement

https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/996563/jewish/Four-Kinds-Six-Directions.htm

The movements we make with the Four Kinds each day of Sukkot are a meditation on bringing our emotions into balanced harmony. This meditation is grounded in the kavanot of the Ari, as explained in the siddur of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi.

We prayed for rain, food, and fertility in our harvest celebratory movements (ANE), we now pray for peace and oneness among the “human” species in our harvest celebratory movements (present CE)!

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If you speak Arabic or English as a first language and you are not ancestrally from Saudi Arabia or England, then you have been colonized and your ancestors taught this language and its accompanying culture.

If you are not from Rome, thus white European, but are Christian and if you are not from Arabia, thus Arab, but are Muslim, then you have been colonized (or worse!) and your ancestors taught this religion and its revisionist histories.

If you are a privileged or forced product of *either* Christianity or Islam within this world, then you do not know what is an ethno-religious people – unless you are a resistant native, indigenous, yourself.

Skin color and physical features have nothing to do with this. For within every ethno-national people, there are always the color/looks exceptions. Prove me wrong, yes, those bought into the colonizers’ visions!

The way to peace among humans is through honesty, communication, relationship, and mutual commitment to our human species survival. Hey, that’s *all* of us, regardless our differences!

There is no “we” versus “them,” outside of human group perception. BUT, there is no *we* period in the future, if “*we*” humans keep fighting each other over differences. The earth Herself is ramping up to remove our *human* hubris from Her surface.

We are smart enough, as humans to know our present predicament – to know the difference between being alive and rejoicing in our differences, rather than being extinct as a human species, all because fighting “*them*” and disparging “*them*” is more important.

Sukkot, a 3,200 year old Jewish tradition (on conservative historical numbers), is all about reaching that point in human history where *all* peoples/nations – regardless of geography, religion, ancestry, orientation, gender, politics, whatever – stop encroaching on *others* ways of life.

If no one felt the *need* to impose by might their derech (way, path) upon another, then mutually co-operative peace is attainable among humans! Study history. Please! Just saying the obvious, here. Wars start by seeing difference *first*, before our commonality – and saying, “that’s not right!”.

Sukkot is about the *end* of conquesting and colonizing, and about a mutually shared respect for *both* our similarities and our differences, as humans raised in various human cultures. So long as oppression, slavery, and victimization of minorities is non-existent, what does it matter which “God” that you worship?! Torah/TaNaKh says it *does not* matter, at all!!!

No non-Jew coming to the “Mount of YHWH” is expected to be Jewish – not by birth, nor by religion, nor by any homeland or colonized national politics – you come as you are, Jew and gentile, to the place of YHWH. This is Torah, through and through! This is why Jerusalem is so the center of Jewish culture – anywhere and everywhere Jews reside in this world – *for* this very purpose is the heartbeat of Jewish eschatology.

But, I suppose (as most Jews) ain’t *no one* actually listening (other than Jews seeking to understand *why* we persist and do not assimilate)! Too busy, yes, with the colonizers’ deceptions! Too busy with the colonizers’ distractions. But, LISTEN ….

*Mother Earth decides our fate, full stop!* Not us, humans! Seriously?!!! Which human can yet sustain human survival in oxygen-less space, and also perpetuate our *human* species?! … Hello???!!! …

No wonder most Jews refuse even to bother with reaching out beyond our community. The silence is so effing disappointing! 🙁

Who’s actually listening?!

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I will end this סוכות Sukkot with a Ladino “Kuentos de Djoha”. The top block is written in Sephardic Jewish creole (Ladino), and the bottom block is written in English. The story’s message is a simple one: Before assuming – and, thus, stereotyping a person, a family, a people/ethnicity – know the speakers and what they’re referring to!

Moed Alegre Alegre! – מועדים לשמחה!

Kuentos de Djoha – Stories of Djoha

Por munchos anyos Djoha vendia frutas i vedruras kaminando por la sivdad entera. A la fin Djoha ya estava viejo, i estava echado en su kama al punto de morir kon todos su mujer i sus ijos a su deredor.

Les disho Djoha, “a ti mi mujer kerida, te desho las sinko kazas ke estan en la plaza.” “Esto es todo lo ke me deshas?” Demando eya. “Si”, disho el. “Bien mi kerido”, le disho eya.

“A ti Avramiko te desho las ocho kazas i las tres ke estan serka del hamam de la sivdad.” “Si mi senyor padre.”

“A ti Moshoniko te do las vente kazas ke estan serka del palasio del sultan.” “Mersi muncho mi senyor padre,” disho el.

“A ti Sarika mi ija, ya se ke es muncho, ama a ti te desho los dos edifisios ke estan serka de la mar.” “Si mi senyor padre,” disho eya.

La enfermiera ke estava oyendo estas palavras, se kedo maraviyada i le demando a la mujer de Djoha, “No me puedo kreer, el era muy riko, kazas i edifisios en toda la sivdad?”

“No”, le disho eya. “Mos esta dando los kaminos ande el vendia la fruta i la vedrura, el zerzavat, para ke mozotros kontinuemos kon el echo.”

Djoha sold fruits and vegetables walking around the city everyday. Now Djoha was old and sick and laying on his deathbed he asked his wife and children to be by him.

Djoha said, “to you may darling wife, I give you the five houses by the plaza.” “Is that all I get?” She asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Okay my love,” she said.

“To you Avramiko I leave the eight houses and the three others that are next to the bathouses of the city.” “Yes father,” was the reply.

“To you Moshoniko I give the twenty houses that are near the palace of the sultan.” “Thank you father,” said the young man.

“Sarika my daughter, I know that for a young woman like you it might not be enough, but to you I leave the two buildings that are next to the sea.” “Yes my father,” she said.

“The nurse attending to him could not believe what she was hearing, she turned to Djoha’s wife and said, “ I can not believe how wealthy he is, houses and buildings all over the city?”

“No my dear,” she replied, “he is assigning the routes where he sold the fruits to us, so that we can continue with the business.”