The Medieval poet Chaucer famously said: “All Good things must come to an end.”
Last year during Sukkot, I learned this lesson when a wind storm tested the strength of my sukkah. I had spent time decorating it with my daughter Lilah, placing branches on the roof, and carefully hanging gourds and other decorations on its walls. The flimsy structure was no match for 50 mph winds. Although the sukkah was staked down, the gusts were so strong that the metal structure sheered into pieces. Not much could be salvaged.
When I called my sukkah retailer this year, the Sukkah Project, I relayed what had happened to my sukkah. The man on the phone told me that he had received calls after the storm complaining about the integrity of their sukkot. People felt that the structure should have endured the strong winds. I shared with him my view that any sukkah that could survive such a storm, probably wasn’t a kosher sukkah. A sukkah by definition is a temporary structure. If it rains, you're supposed to get wet. If there is wind, then your sukkah might get blown over. A sukkah isn’t a shelter, as much as it’s reminder that life is fragile and ephemeral.
That’s why on Sukkot, we read the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiasties). Kohelet uses the word Hevel, meaning breath or vapor, 38 times.
הֲבֵ֤ל הֲבָלִים֙ אָמַ֣ר קֹהֶ֔לֶת הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֖ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל׃
Merest breath, says Kohelet, all is but mere breath (Kohelet 1:2)
Life is ephemeral. Our days our fleeting. Even the best of people eventually die. All good things must come to an end. That is the reminder of Sukkot.
But then comes Simchat Torah immediately following Sukkot, and we come to realize that Chaucer isn’t exactly right. Life is ephemeral, yes! But there are good things in this world that are eternal. Simchat Torah is the reminder that the Torah never ends. As the prophet Isiah teaches: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the D’var Adonai, the word of God endures forever (Isaiah 40:8).” We come to the end of Deuteronomy, and then we go right back to Genesis without missing a beat. We don’t count how many times we’ve finished the Torah, because we’ve never really finished the Torah. It’s pages extend to infinity, because it’s words are never meant to be concluded. And that makes it different than your run of the mill book.
There are those of you out there who read books over and over. I’ve read the Harry Potter series a few times. Same with several of Dan Brown’s books. I’ve watched certain TV shows multiple times. But the series finale or the closing chapter is always an ending. The Torah doesn’t conclude the way that typical books do. The Torah doesn’t have an ending, rather it has a restart point. Simchat Torah is the reminder that not everything is ephemeral, that there are things that are eternal. Objects and things are ephemeral. But ideas and concepts can be eternal. A torah will eventually break down, fade, tear, and need to be buried. But the Torah, will endure.
It’s not just the Torah that’s eternal. I want to share two additional eternal and timeless concepts. The first is the idea of the soul. While our bodies grow old, sick, and are limited in their life span, Judaism teaches that there is a part of us that lives on into eternity. The soul, or the neshama. I’m not referring to some ectoplasmic substance that has weight, or is composed of measurable energy. Judaism has many views as to what this soul actually is, but it is clear that it’s something that lives beyond the physical. I like to think of the soul as the memory and the legacy of our lives that continue to impact the world long after our bodies are gone.
The Psalmist asks: “Shall we live forever and avoid the sight of the grave?” Of course the answer is NO. “Alike the wise and foolish end their days, leaving their wealth to others. . . . Human splendor does not last . . . we pass away. But God, taking me, will redeem my soul.” (Psalm 49:10–11, 13, 16). Something lives on in each and every life. Something that gets passed on to others. The memories of our loved ones are spiritually always present in our lives. Their memories never fade, their legacies grow in the world as we carry out the lessons they taught us, and as we see their qualities in our lives, and in our children. Something from them endures. Their neshama, lives in our lives.
On a Jewish gravestone, you often see the acronym: .ת.נ.צ.ב.ה. These letters stand for תהא נפשו/ה צרורה בצרור החיים (t'hay nafsho/ah tzrurah b'tzror hachaim), "May his/her soul be bound up in the bond of life. This means that the souls of our loved ones will continue to live on in our lives. The memory of our loved ones continue to inspire us, and we keep them alive through memory. The the neshama, like the Torah, is eternal.
What else is eternal? Hope! The obscure and relatively unknown poet Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909) wrote a single line of poetry that became engrained in the consciousness of nearly every Jew of the latter part of the 20th Century. His 1878 poem “Tikvateinu (Our Hope)” included the line “עוד לא עבדה תקותנו, “Our hope is not yet lost.” These words were a part of the two stanzas from Imber’s poem that were eventually put to music and adopted as the national anthem for the State of Israel. Those two stanzas are now well known as “Hatikva (the Hope). The power of these terse words comes not in their eloquence, but in that they speak to an age-old feeling that has nurtured the Jewish people through millennia of persecution. Hope has been a part of the our crisis toolbox, and has helped us weather even the darkest times of history.
It’s not that our hope is not yet lost. Our hope is never lost. It’s what sustains us. The Psalmist writes:
מַּעֲמַקִּ֖ים קְרָאתִ֣יךָ יְהוָֽה׃
Out of the depths I call to you
קִוִּ֣יתִי יְ֭הוָה קִוְּתָ֣ה נַפְשִׁ֑י
I hope for you O’ God, My soul sits in hope for you
פְשִׁ֥י לַֽאדֹנָ֑י מִשֹּׁמְרִ֥ים לַ֝בֹּ֗קֶר שֹׁמְרִ֥ים לַבֹּֽקֶר׃
My soul hopes for you God like the night watchman hopes for the morning, like the night watchman for morning (Psalm 130:1, 5-6)
Hope, is what gets us out of the depths and out of the darkness. Hope doesn’t die, though it can be repressed. Hope is tenacious, persistent, and eternal. Our hope is not yet lost. Our hope is never lost. Because hope isn’t an object that’s ephemeral, it’s a concept that is eternal. Hope has kept us alive through destruction, pogrom, antisemitism, and the Holocaust, and our hope is not yet lost. Hope will get us through whatever it is we struggle with.
Sukkot reminds us that things and our physical lives eventually come to an end. But Judaism forbids us from taking this bitter pill without a chaser. The chaser is Simchat Torah. Yes, physical things always come to an end; But eternal concepts keep us alive, sustain us, and bring our lives meaning, purpose, and tools to get through whatever it is we might face: The Torah never ends, the soul never dies, and our hope, is not yet lost.