Suckoth: Hoshana

This year, I tried to understand something about Hoshanoth, the parade around the synagogue, branches and citron in hand, chanting short, obscure verses. What is it? what is the meaning of the chant?

The Talmud  (Suckah 43b) is certain that people carried a branch and circled the altar, but there is a difference of opinion whether it was the palm ( lulav) or the willow ( arava).  This annual altar  ritual seems  a forerunner of circling the kaaba in Mecca during the Haj pilgrimage.  (the scholars in the Talmud are 3rd century, Islam is founded in the early 7th), more likely, they are  branches from a  more distant and murky common source. The Shulchan Aruch ( Orach Chaim 660) describes the parade  as our custom, but does not specify the chant.  The final line of this chapter 

יש מי שאומר שאין אומרים הושענא בשבת ולא נהגו כן: 3. There is one who says not to say Hoshanot on Shabbat, though our practice is not like that.

implies something that is recited, but the text is not otherwise specified. 

In the Ashkenazic tradition, we have a series of texts that begin with 

לְמַעַנְךָ

For your sake.

After the 26 short chants ( 4 introductory, 22 alphabetical) is a series of  alphabetically arranged similes,mostly historical examples of rescue, of Hoshana. Some of the verses are difficult to understand. The Koren siddur doesn't offer a translation.  I was drawn to a footnote in the Art Scroll machzor for Suckoth which  interprets the line: 

כְּהוֹשַֽׁעְתָּ כַּנָּֽה מְשׁוֹרֶֽרֶת וַיּֽוֹשַׁע. לְגוֹחָֽהּ מְצֻיֶּֽנֶת וַיִּוָּֽשַׁע. כֵּן הוֹשַׁע נָא: Like You saved the base, singing (Exodus 13:40), "and He saved," [when] the One bursting out was indicated as saved, so too please save!

as a comment on the verse (Exodus 13:40): " indicates the deliverance of the Shechinah from the Egyptian exile alongside of Israel. "  Chizkuni comments on this verse: ויושע ה' ביום ההוא, “on that day the Lord delivered;” this verse testifies to G-d’s having kept His promise. I simplified this in my mind to mean that Gd had rescued self. 

Suddenly Hoshana had a new meaning for me. Save us( Hoshana) for your sake, made sense.  The entity that promised salvation has to come through. 

We moved to a new suckah this year.  For decades we sat in a suckah that resembled a bunker.  As a child of holocaust survivors,  it felt appropriate.  Now we have a new deck that covers that area. The deck was disigned to have an easily assembled suckah. The change brought to mind what suckot may have meant for my parents. 

When our family  went to Poland, Eugeniusz Stych described the ingenious cover my father had made. My parents lived buried in a pit by day, to hide from the Nazis and their collaborators. Eugeniusz would bring them food in a pail, as if he were feeding the dogs. The cover of the trench was made of sticks and leaves, and was removed by a pulley system. The cover was schach, suckah covering. For a year, my parents lived in a pit covered with schach. I imagine that seeing the roof of a suckah was a trigger of some terrible memories for my parents.

The suckah is a symbol of Hoshana. The flimsy cover does something, it blocks the sun, but it does not protect from the rain or even a strong wind. The Hoshana comes from a higher source. Sometimes it rains.

Hoshana is a little like insurance. There is an entity to which you can make a claim, but the "guarantor" examines the claim for any violation of the policy and only pays off sometimes. The title of rescuer confers privileges and obligations. Hoshana

These chants emerge from an ancient myst. Their author(s) is the obscure Eleiezer Hakalir. There is no clarity about when he (they) lived. He was a master of neologisms, made up words. The verses are cryptic declarations and may contain meanings that are uncomfortable. Hoshanoth is the most mystical of the services that survive. There is a place for marching in a circle and not understanding what we cannot understand.

 

Yom Kippur 2021 speech

 

We are here on Yom Kippur about to say Yizkor. This is a time when the attention is right to receive a message; the antenna is extended.

We are more receptive, in part, because we are about to do something strange, We are going to remember people with whom we can no longer interact in the usual way, people who will not answer us, who will never again give us a sign in the rational world.  But we will think about them and, perhaps imagine they are looking down at us. 

The Yizkor service has a formula.   In our current Machzor, the pledge of a Tzedakah donation, in the name of the deceased, is preceded by some verses, almost all  from Psalms, followed by the complete psalm 91.

 

The last time I spoke before Yizkor, I did a brief analysis of the first 4 verses that are printed in the machzor. I was invited back, so this time I would like to look at some of Psalm 91.

Psalm 91 has a very timely designation. In the gemarrah, in Shavuoth 15b it is called the song of plagues (nega’im) because the tenth verse says:

 

 וְ֝נֶ֗גַע לֹא־יִקְרַ֥ב בְּאׇהֳלֶֽךָ׃ No plague will come near your dwelling

 

It begins:

יֹ֭שֵׁב בְּסֵ֣תֶר עֶלְי֑וֹן בְּצֵ֥ל שַׁ֝דַּ֗י יִתְלוֹנָֽן׃

One who sits  in the shelter of the Most High
in the shadow  of Shakai ( the Almighty)—

The first word generates a question. Who is sitting?  Is it the people we are remembering?  Is it we, who are sitting here now? Is it those who are deserving of the shelter?

Rashi and others say this is a general statement about One who sits in the shelter, it is one who has chosen the behaviors that merit such an abode.  It could be any of the above.

 

Radak ,on the basis of several midrashim  attributes authorship of this psalm to Moshe. Thus, we can justify connecting it with other poetry recited by Moshe, the poem that is the bulk of this week’s parsha.

That brings us to the second word:  בְּסֵ֣תֶר   translated here as “in the shelter”,  The outside world is threatening  and the shadow  of the Shakai aspect of Gd, affords a place to rest.

 

 The word סֵ֣תֶר means to hide or conceal   It is used in the frightening verse we read in this week’s parsha

וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אַסְתִּ֤ירָה פָנַי֙ מֵהֶ֔ם אֶרְאֶ֖ה מָ֣ה אַחֲרִיתָ֑ם

He said:
I will hide My countenance from them,
And see how they fare in the end.

 

One could translate  seither as inaccessible.

  When it makes a person unavailable to harm, it can have a positive meaning.

but it is  negative when it conceals the ultimate source of rescue.

When these facts are concealed from knowledge, they are a secret (nistar)

 whose revelation facilitates repentance and comfort.

For me, the hiding evokes what my parents did during the Holocaust. They hid, buried in the ground by day, from an overwhelming level of danger. They were sought by the very effective and systematic Nazis. My father, who was part of the Treblinka uprising, was a hunted man.  Turning in Jews was rewarded; failing to report them could be punished by the death of one’s entire family.

The herding and systematic slaughter of the Jews was a manifestation of a verse from Ha’azinu:

 

אֵיכָ֞ה יִרְדֹּ֤ף אֶחָד֙ אֶ֔לֶף וּשְׁנַ֖יִם יָנִ֣יסוּ רְבָבָ֑ה

“How could one have routed a thousand, 
Or two put ten thousand to flight, 
 

It is Echoed in verse 7 of Psalm 91, the psalm we are looking at, the psalm we say before Yizkor:

 

ז  יִפֹּל מִצִּדְּךָ, אֶלֶף--וּרְבָבָה מִימִינֶךָ:    אֵלֶיךָ, לֹא יִגָּשׁ.

 

A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right,
but it will not come near you.

 

This is how it turned out for my parents. They hid in the shadow of the Almighty until Gd’s countenance was, once more, as promised, revealed.

My parents’ esperience was vey dramatic, but I think people have this experience of rescue from situations that seem overwhelming many times in their lives. Our success, an sometimes our lives, depend upon improbable, unexpectedly good outcomes.   

 

The second verse then is an acknowledgment:

 

אֹמַ֗ר לַ֭יֹ מַחְסִ֣י וּמְצוּדָתִ֑י אֱ֝לַ אֶבְטַח־בּֽוֹ׃

 

I say of the LORD, my refuge and stronghold,
my God in whom I trust,

 

 The refugee can recognize the miracle of her survival, all the unlikely events that had to align, Divine intervention was needed.

The survivor (and we are all survivors)  is in a position to anticipate the need for miracles in the future and by declaring the  conviction  that these interventions come from GD,  we might  expedite their availability, increase our worthiness

                        ------------

כִּ֤י ה֣וּא יַ֭צִּילְךָ מִפַּ֥ח יָק֗וּשׁ מִדֶּ֥בֶר הַוּֽוֹת׃

that He will save you from the fowler’s snare,
from the deadly pestilence.

מִפַּ֥ח יָק֗וּשׁ

 

The bird is a symbol of freedom, and it is the bird trap that the believer is saved from. 

We live in a country and a culture that treasures freedom.

  We live in a time when that word is being redefined.

Accepting our tradition, accepting the yoke of heavenly authority, is considered a free choice in this society

But that choice severe limits acceptable options, and, in that sense, it limits freedom

 At some point, free spills over into harmful and dangerous.

 Belief relinquishes some freedom,

 but Surrendering some freedom affords safety from its trap of  indulging in unbridled temptation.

מִדֶּ֥בֶר הַוּֽוֹת

the deadly pestilence

Scientifically, It is clearly not the vaccine alone that protects from the plague.

I do not want to identify these words with the COVID pandemic.

 But it is striking to see the juxtaposition with the fowler’s snare, the trap of freedom (Although there may be disagreement about the nature of the trap).  The interactions between faith in Gd’s protection and the need to take other actions for survival is very complex.

There are trite jokes about a person who so firmly believes that rescue  will come through Divine intervention that  he sends away the car, the boat, and the helicopter sent by the state. She dies and  comes to heaven where he is asked: why didn’t you use the things we sent you? To win the lottery you must buy a ticket. Human action can be part of Gd’s plan.

 

 

The gemarrah in Shavuoth says:Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi would recite these verses (psalm 91)  and fall asleep.  The Gemara asks: How could he do that?

 But doesn’t Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi himself say: One is prohibited from healing himself with words of Torah? The Rabbi certainly trusted in Gd

But he also knew that he had to act on his own behalf.

                        -----------------

 

In our tradition, this is not a confrontation between science and a strict literal nterpretation   of the textm In  the Talmud,  These verses are interpreted as figurative.

And Rav Ḥisda says that Rabbi Yirmeya bar Abba says:

 What is the meaning of that which is written:

“No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your tent” (Psalms 91:10)?

“No evil shall befall you” means that

the evil inclination shall not dominate them (Sanhedrin 103a) Or

This means that you will be frightened neither by bad dreams nor by evil thoughts. (Berchoth 55b)

 

In other places in the talmud, this section of the psalm is imagined as a blessing from David and Bathsheva  to their son Shlomo .  I think that our parents had no trouble reaching for the sky in their blessings.  I accept them with gratitude and pass them on to my children.

 

The psalm ends with a more realistic reward:

 

טו  יִקְרָאֵנִי, וְאֶעֱנֵהוּ--עִמּוֹ-אָנֹכִי בְצָרָה;    אֲחַלְּצֵהוּ, וַאֲכַבְּדֵהוּ.	15 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him, and bring him to honour.
טז  אֹרֶךְ יָמִים, אַשְׂבִּיעֵהוּ;    וְאַרְאֵהוּ, בִּישׁוּעָתִי.	16 With long life will I satisfy him, and make him to behold My salvation.' {P}

 

 

We must live with less than perfect protection and compensate with our own actions. According to the Radak and ibn Ezra,The ultimate salvation mentioned hereIs the world to come. It is enjoyed by those we remember now

 

---------------

The midrash Tanchuma relates this psalm to the construction of the Mishkan ( Vayakel and Nasso).  .According to Bamidbar Rabba (12;3)   Moshe composed these words on the day the Mishkan was completed.

 The support of the human made sanctuary, the sanctuary of the community,  is part of the partnership that brings the shelter of the most high.

 

 

 

Vayelech: Heshie

When I was about 19, I read On The Road, the canon text of the Beats.  I idolized (the word is chosen) the Beat elite, I was attracted to them like a 5 year old is attracted to a teen.  I did not understand the book. Although  I listened to it again last year, I can still say that, but in a different way.  What I did comprehend was that this was an Odyssey story, a travel adventure with dangers and  surprises, a test of human ingenuity and a questioning of desires.  In  Parshath Vayelech, Moshe speaks to a people who have experienced and survived a great adventure: the Egyptian revolution and 40 years in the desert. He tells them that the journey is far from over. 

I had an On The Road experience when I was 19.  Our friend Heshie Stoffer was getting married in Montreal.  Heshie (z"l) died  the day before Rosh Hashanah, 4 days ago. 

 We all lived in Brooklyn.  We all chipped in ( I think it was $50.00 each; corrects to $350 today) to buy a 1954  Packard whom we named Bessy. Packard was a luxury brand in its day.  It was like a 20 year old Cadillac.  The car had problems, but one of the group ( Zevi [z"l}) had experience with cars. Cars were quite exotic for me.  My parents never owned a car, so riding in a car was a treat for me. Driving to Montreal, 375 miles, a 7 hour ride, with 5 of my best friends was an outstanding experience.  And when the car broke down, gave up the ghost on the New York Thruway, the memory became indelible. [Details are vague by design]

Heshie was at the center  of many adventures in my life.  He took me to meet Rabbi Scheinberg, who wore more than 100 pairs of tzitzith (  four cornered fringed garments) simultaneously. When he met my 16 year old American son, the first thing he did was disassemble his gun and tell him to put it back together so they could go shooting. 

It was the day before Rosh Hashanah, as if in anticipation of his own yahrzeit ( anniversary of death) that Heshie did the greatest kindness for me.  My father had just died on the airplane, travelling from Miami to the Kline-Galland nursing home in Seattle.  That prompted an emergency landing in Oklahoma where the preparations for burial were  performed through the generosity of the local Chabad.  After many adventures (meeting my passport in New York with the help of  Josh Gortler and Steve and Naomi Toder)  my sister and I arrived with the body in Israel.  The burial took place quickly ( thanks to the paradigm of altruism: David Gurtler).  I was left in Israel for Rosh Hashana. Heshie (z"l) and his wife Suzie (z"l) [who had ovarian cancer at the time], took care of  me  in the moment of my grief.  There was no one who manifested the verse:

הָפַ֣כְתָּ מִסְפְּדִי֮ לְמָח֢וֹל לִ֥י פִּתַּ֥חְתָּ שַׂקִּ֑י וַֽתְּאַזְּרֵ֥נִי שִׂמְחָֽה׃ 

You turned my lament into dancing,
you undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy,

more than Heshie.  And he did it with reverence. What a loss. 

The parsha tells us that there is a story that survives loss. The Israelites will  survive the passing of Moshe ... but it will not be the same.  It will not be the same without Heshie. 

 Nitzavim: Perspective

 

This week's parsha has some enigmatic verses.

The heretics are referred to:

פֶּן־יֵ֣שׁ בָּכֶ֗ם שֹׁ֛רֶשׁ פֹּרֶ֥ה רֹ֖אשׁ וְלַעֲנָֽה׃   lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood  ( Machon Mamare) 

This rosh and la’ana,  are difficult to translate.  Onkelos, the official translator of the Mosaic books, does not try. It is rendered: גְּבַר מְהַרְהַר חֶטְאִין אוֹ זָדוֹן: a man that hurries (to) sin or transgression.   This is an interpretation that fits with the context. Perhaps it understands rosh as [hurrying to the] front   The Jerusalem targum and Targum Johnathan  capture other possible meanings that are related to words: for its beginning (rosh) may be sweet as honey, but its end will be bitter as the deadly wormwood(la’anah); 

The King James committee translated rosh as gall. Art Scroll and Koren (Jerusalem Bible) liked their choice enough to copy it. What is a gall?   Since the context is a root, this is presumably a plant gall, any abnormal outgrowth or swelling in a plant, as from viral damage, ( Free disctionary) .    I had a  boyhood friend who became a plant pathologist.  He studied crown (rosh) galls: plant tumors induced by bacteria. Galls jut out and are rounded like heads.  The idea of a tumor, or cancer, induced by some noxious irritation, jutting out of the more normal and productive corpus, is an appealing interpretation.  These galls have unique chemicals, some of them  toxic. The evolution of the word gall to mean bitter ( as in gallbladder) and irritating  ( as in he galls me) adds to the aptness as a description of undesirable rebels. The ideas of gall are consistent with Rashi’s interpretation:

שרש פרה ראש ולענה [PERHAPS THERE IS AMONG YOU] A ROOT THAT IS FRUITFUL IN POISONOUS HERB AND WORMWOOD — i.e. a root that brings forth herbs bitter as wormwood-plants, which are very bitter. The meaning is: Lest there be a man or woman or family or tribe that fruitfully produces and increases wickedness in your midst.

 

Translating  la’aneh as Wormwood seems consistent with the non-Onkelos targum, although the transmission of species is an ever present problem in Torah interpretation.  Mendelkern translates la’aneh as absinthium, which is another way to say  wormwood.  Absinthe is an  alcoholic beverage, banned by the US FDA, made from wormwood, that contains a hallucinogen,  thujone, that is toxic to the kidneys. La’aneh is a poison that distorts perception; is this not how a believer looks at heresy?

The renegades might think:

 שָׁל֣וֹם יִֽהְיֶה־לִּ֔י כִּ֛י בִּשְׁרִר֥וּת לִבִּ֖י אֵלֵ֑ךְ לְמַ֛עַן סְפ֥וֹת הָרָוָ֖ה אֶת־הַצְּמֵאָֽה

 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart--that the watered be swept away with the dry' (MM)

The need to say that 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart’ demonstrates that she is comforting herself, that he perceives the danger of the rebellious position.

הָרָוָ֖ה אֶת־הַצְּמֵאָֽה,  the watered with the dry: Onkelos and Targum Johnathan both translate הָרָוָ֖ה  (haravah)  as  שָׁלוּתָא,  neglect, error, forgetfulness (Jastrow) . Rashi combines the inadvertent with the wet:

הרוה. שׁוֹגֵג, שֶׁהוּא עוֹשֶׂה כְאָדָם שִׁכּוֹר שֶׁהוּא עוֹשֶׂה שֶׁלֹּא מִדַּעַת:

הרוה DRUNKENNESS figuratively describes the condition of a שוגג, one who acts inadvertently. The expression is an apt one because he acts like a drunken man who does things unwittingly,

The dereliction that is drunkenness leads to sins of negligence. The inebriated has imbibed in order to drown the superego, to be released from the constraints of the sober mind. These trespasses have an excuse of sorts, they come during the pursuit of small pleasures, they are accidents that occurred while impaired.

The ibn Ezra associates the watered with the behavior of the righteous that protects the community.  Ramban derives  הָרָוָ֖ה (ravah) from satisfaction for the satisfied soul is called ravah (satiated). To me, the phrase evokes the transition from the moisture of youth (wet behind the ears) to the dryness of old age, from  the misdemeanors of youth to the felonies of maturity.

The transition suggested by the Targum and Rashi also evoke the problem of addiction. The innocent adventure that waters the spirit evolves into an unquenchable thirst that is never satisfied. Last week’s daf yomi (Succah 52) described the process: The misdeed starts off as an honored guest from an exotic kingdom, settles in as a roommate, and ultimately becomes the master.

 

הַנִּ֨סְתָּרֹ֔ת לַיהֹוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֑ינוּ וְהַנִּגְלֹ֞ת לָ֤ׄנׄוּׄ וּׄלְׄבָׄנֵ֙ׄיׄנׄוּ֙ׄ עַׄד־עוֹלָ֔ם לַעֲשׂ֕וֹת אֶת־כׇּל־דִּבְרֵ֖י הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּֽאת׃ {ס}         Concealed acts concern the LORD our God; but with overt acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching.

 

Rashi, based upon the Talmud, understands this verse on a population level.  The community is openly adhering to the law, how can they be held responsible for the secret transgressions of rebel individuals? The verse tells us not to worry about the hidden covens, just do what the Torah tells you. 

Ramban adds: By way of the simple meaning of Scripture it is my opinion that the secret things are the sins that are hidden from those who commit them. This is closer to the feeling that the verse stirs in me. I understand the secrets to be the mechanics of the universe, the principles that make sin detrimental to destiny. Does that fit with the text?

Notice that dots of ambivalence, marking the letters for possible erasure, cover “us and our children” The nigloth, the revealed [things] are eternal, but not necessarily for us and our children.

Will we and our children ever understand?

Is understanding important?

 Can we still follow the Torah, as it has evolved, on faith in the absence of understanding?