d’var torah
Diff erent Sides,
Same Circle
BY RABBI GILA RUSKIN
Parshat Emor
W hen you are 5½-years-old,
your half-birthday is a big
event. We were decorating pillowcases for
the seder, and my grandkid (age 5½)
painted a sukkah. Why a sukkah? I
asked. Passover sort of reminds me of
Sukkot, he answered.

Very excited at this opportunity to
teach him about the Jewish calendar,
I drew a circle and showed him how
Passover and Sukkot are directly across
the circle from each other. When you
look up through the branches when we
are eating dinner on the fi rst night of
Sukkot, what do you see? A full moon.

Tonight at the fi rst seder, when we all go
outside to act out leaving Egypt and you
look up at the sky, what will you see? A
full moon!
Th at’s because Sukkot is the half
birthday of Passover, and Passover is
the half birthday of Sukkot! Both have
full moons. Maybe, he said, we should
sing “Happy Half-birthday” to Sukkot
tonight! Not a bad idea ...

Back in the day, it was much easier
to see the connections. Everyone was
out in the fi eld harvesting at the full
moon. Or everyone was in Jerusalem for
an eight-day celebration, reconnecting
with family and friends and tribe. In
our era, maybe we need a half-birthday
party to remind us that none of our holy
days are like separate slices of a pie; they
are all connected through the cycles of
nature, as were all ancient festivals.

Th at teachable moment with my
grandkid was a fulfi llment of the ritual
mitzvot of holy day observance cited
in Parshat Emor, but also my legacy
from our ancestor Abraham who was
specifi cally chosen to fulfi ll the mission
of “instructing his children and his pos-
terity to keep God’s ways by doing what
is just and right, in order that God may
bring about for Abraham what has been
promised.” Genesis 18:19
Th at is, according to Th omas Cahill,
one of “Th e Gift s of the Jews.”
“In a world that marked the cycles of
the seasons, the Jews revealed a new way
to mark time.”
Not only equinox or solstice, but also
the linear time of l’dor vador: of living
our lives ever aware that we are precious
links in the generational chain. We bind
ourselves in Divine covenant to our
family, our community and the com-
munity of humankind, to the past and
to the future.

Our cyclical holidays also belong to
covenantal/linear/historical time. Th ey
commemorate historic events. Pesach
celebrates the exodus from Egypt,
Shavuot the giving of the Torah and
Sukkot the 40 years of wandering in the
wilderness. Parshat Emor explains: “In order that
future generations may know that I
made the Israelite people live in booths
when I brought them out of the land of
Egypt,” Passover is connected to Sukkot
not only with a full moon but also with
a shared historical experience of liber-
ation and the promise of a civilization
based on transformative justice.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l, wrote:
“Th e Hebrew Bible is the fi rst docu-
ment to see time as an arena of change.

Tomorrow need not be the same as yes-
terday. Time is not a series of moments
traced on the face of a watch, always
moving yet always the same.” Instead,
it is a journey with historical narratives
and ethical teachings passed down and
ever developing from generation to gen-
eration. What I would like to inform my
grandchild is that Judaism has survived
and fl ourished to our day because we
embrace all three cords woven together:
the awesome attentiveness and ritual
response to the cycles of nature, the
annual acknowledgments of the his-
torical journey of our people and the
commitment to the ethical imperative
of justice, tempered with compassion.

Opportunities abound to express
with our hands and hearts that glorious
experience. Not only at the seder, but
as we adorn our sukkah next fall. We
will shake the symbols of the autumnal
harvest, invite our ancestors (ushpizin)
as our honored guests and share our
abundance with those who confront
scarcity, braiding those three cords of
our legacy together. In gratitude, in rev-
erence, in joy. JE
Rabbi Gila Ruskin is rabbi emerita
of Temple Adas Shalom in Havre de
Grace, Maryland, and creates Midrash
Mosaics. Th e Board of Rabbis of Greater
Philadelphia is proud to provide diverse
perspectives on Torah commentary
for the Jewish Exponent. Th e opin-
ions expressed in this column are the
author’s own and do not refl ect the view
of the Board of Rabbis.

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