by Rabbi Katy Allen
Last year I forgot, and ordered a lulav
and etrog.
This year, I remembered and didn’t
order them. This year I knew I was going to try substituting locally
grown plants in place of the etrog, palm, myrtle, and willow that I
normally order from the local Judaica shop, coming straight from
Israel.
I didn’t know what plants I would
use. But I was aware that I would miss holding those traditional
plants in my hand as I stood in the sukkah and waved them in every
direction, acknowledging the presence of something greater than
myself all around me. I knew my forgetfulness last year was a measure
of my ambivalence. I’m not a halachic Jew by any means, not feeling
compelled to observe the letter of the law, but I have always found
meaning and comfort in the lulav and etrog. And I absolutely love the
holiday of Sukkot. I love building the sukkah, sharing it with family
and friends, and eating outdoors no matter how cold it is in New
England in October, driven indoors only by the rain.
So here I was, with Sukkot approaching.
The question of what plant leaves and fruit to use was on my mind. I
read up a bit on what others have done. But I hadn’t decided what I
was going to use in place of the traditional tropical plants that
Jewish law and tradition direct us to use.
Then Sukkot was upon us. Having been
busy - always a convenient excuse - I hadn’t taken the time to give
the question enough thought to settle on any particular plants.
I was busy hosting my children and
grandchildren as the holiday began, and then suddenly it was Sukkot
morning, and I didn’t have a lulav and etrog and I still hadn’t
collected anything to take their place.
My wrestling with the question was
abruptly interrupted by family issues, some of them emotionally
charged. (I’m assuming you have experience with this and
understand.) I became caught up in dealing with all of it, and as it
progressed, I found myself losing my equanimity and getting upset in
ways that I didn’t want to.
Finally I paused to take a deep breath,
and I realized it was past time to find my replacement lulav and
etrog. Slowing down, I wandered our yard considering my options. I
returned with a fruit from a kousa dogwood tree, not native, but a
volunteer, probably from fruit from our neighbor’s tree; a long
yucca leaf, also definitely not native, but having come from
separating my aunt’s (z”l) yucca plant some twenty years ago; and
an arching stem of giant Solomon’s seal, a native plant that came
from separating someone else’s patch 15-20 years ago; and a stem of
monarda, also a native plant, one that I had purchased a few years
ago as part of my efforts to enrich my native pollinator garden.
Various metaphors from rabbinic
literature regarding what the lulav and etrog represent flitted
through my mind - the parts of the body or the types of people who
make up a community, as well as the understanding that they come from
different ecosystems. But when I finally held these plant parts in my
hand and sat with them in the sukkah, suddenly all the angst in my
heart and my mind, some of it painful, dissolved. Beneath everything
I had thought was bothering me, I felt a deeper pain, a deeper grief,
from a source far more difficult to heal – my grief and pain over
what we have done to the Earth over the centuries, and in particular,
in recent decades.
I sat with that unexpected pain, and
realized how minor the family concerns were by comparison, even the
most difficult aspects of them. I realized, too, that this deeper
pain related to the Earth was coloring my responses about the family
situation. The family issues could be resolved with love and respect,
patience and caring. The global environmental issues are far more
complicated. As I understood what was happening to me and honored the
difficult feelings, relief washed over me, despite the pain. Clarity
matters.
The time had come to shake my “lulav
and etrog.” But what blessing could I say? I couldn’t recite a
blessing for shaking a lulav - a palm - since I wasn’t holding one.
With my procrastination, I hadn’t researched what others say. After
a bit of reflection, I decided that I could say bimkom lulav, meaning
“in place of the lulav”.
But what about the shehecheyanu
blessing? How and why should I express gratitude for reaching this
time? This time when we have already entered an unprecedented global
environmental crisis? This time when it is apparent that any extra
and unnecessary energy and carbon output is critical to avoid?
And then, unexpectedly, I felt
gratitude for feelings of connection to the natural world around me
resulting from substituting locally grown plants in my sukkah rising
within me. As some measure of my pain was released, I gave thanks for
reaching this season, this day, this understanding. I knew that this
was just the beginning of honoring the pain I was feeling, and that
these difficult feelings would fuel my determination to share the
reality of such emotions with others, and also to provide venues for
other people to honor and process their own pain and grief in the
face of the massive existential crisis of climate change.
On Sukkot we are commanded to be happy.
It is only by honoring, naming, feeling, and letting go of a layer of
our pain and grief that we can honestly be happy.
Rabbi Katy Allen is the founder and
rabbi of Ma'yan Tikvah - A
Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long
and has a growing children’s outdoor learning program, Y’ladim
BaTeva. She is the founder of the
Jewish Climate Action Network-MA, a board certified chaplain, and
a former hospital and hospice chaplain. She received her ordination
from the Academy for Jewish Religionhttp://www.ajr.edu/
in Yonkers, NY, in 2005. She is the author of A
Tree of Life: A Story in Word, Image, and Text and lives in
Wayland, MA, with her spouse, Gabi Mezger, who leads the.singing at
Ma'yan Tikvah.
