Go Deep Into the Book of Ecclesiastes Thank you for joining My Jewish Learning as we explore each megillah read throughout the year.
The next Jewish holiday, Sukkot, is observed beginning Sunday night, October 13th. Sukkot is a harvest festival, a time for giving thanks for the crops of the previous year that will sustain us in the current season (even those of us who think our food comes from the grocery store!). Sukkot also commemorates the 40 years that the Israelites, newly freed from slavery in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness as they made the long trek to the Promised Land.
The sukkah, the temporary shelter that Jews build for the week of Sukkot, alludes to both the temporary booths Jews erected so they could live in their fields as they pulled in the harvest, and the temporary tents the Israelites dwelled in while wandering through the wilderness. Sukkot is a festival of impermanence and transition. The central text for Sukkot is Kohelet (pronounced koe-HEH-let), or Ecclesiastes. It is a stormy, rousing, poetic, searching declamation. The main worry in the text is that life is temporary and, even worse, perhaps without meaning. Kohelet is a perfect articulation of the anxiety of impermanence that animates Sukkot. In Ecclesiastes, the main character and author Kohelet trembles on the edge of the abyss of meaningless, but does not plummet over the side. In the end, Kohelet finds a way to experience meaning in life. The good news, for Kohelet and for us, is that finding meaning can begin today. More Ways to Understand Ecclesiastes The next megillah, the Book of Esther, will be read on the holiday of Purim, in mid-March. Look out for the next email in the megillah series before the holiday begins.
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