Ushpizin: Guests At God’s Table

Ushpizin:  Guests At God’s Table

Sermon for Shabbat Sukkot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

October 21, 2016

Growing up secular in Israel, I missed out on learning a lot about my own religion.  Sure, I learned about the holidays; I celebrated many of our traditions; at home we observed Shabbat by lighting candles, blessing the wine and challah, and eating dinner at the big dining table rather than in the kitchen, often to the accompaniment of Shabbat music that was coming from our one family radio.

At school we learned Torah stories and even some of the Prophets—but no Talmud and very little Midrash. The holidays all had a connection to our Land, the Land of Israel, and to our history as a people, but there was little in our education to link us with rabbinic teachings, with prayers, and certainly none of the more esoteric meanings and lessons that accompany the holidays.

The synagogue and many of the rituals remained mysteries to me until I was a teenager.  Sukkot, however, the holiday of Tabernacles, brought with it something that my friends and I could actually participate in.  It was easy to find planks of wood, some nails and a hammer, and for several years on end my brother and I, as well as several of our neighborhood friends, constructed and decorated a sukkah in the backyard of my childhood home.  We ate a few meals out there, played some games, but then school started again, and winter came in, and in Israel it rains in the winter.  And so, wistfully, we tore down the threadbare construction we had put together so enthusiastically just a few days earlier.

There were no festive family meals in the sukkah that I can recall; and certainly the tradition of inviting ushpizin was not something we children were familiar with.

Ushpizin are guests.  The word comes from Aramaic and is at the root of our own English word, hospitality.  Officially, of course, since the sukkah was in our backyard, all our friends were our guests, but there our hospitality stopped.  We didn’t invite any homeless or hungry people in—frankly, we didn’t know any.  Food may have been scarce in those early days of the State of Israel, but we children didn’t go hungry.  In those years, hundreds of thousands of new immigrants came to our Land, mostly refugees from Arab countries.  There were no homes to house them in, however, and most of them were living in tents in shabby refugee camps.  But we children were happy with what we had.  I guess we were lucky.

It was only much later that I learned about shaking the lulav and etrog—the Four Species—and the meanings that these symbols hold.  And only later, much later, did I learn about the tradition of inviting the ushpizin, the spiritual guests whose presence blesses the sukkah, those unsteady tabernacles that for one week you could see everywhere you looked, in backyards, on porches and even on rooftops.

Sukkot—not the holiday, but rather the tabernacles or booths that give the holiday its name—are decorated with green s’chach, a thatched roof made of interwoven green branches.  Streamers, flowers, paper chains made from colorful paper, drawings, and other miscellaneous decorations beautify the sukkah.  Traditional sukkot also have portraits—imagined, of course, since no one really knows what they looked like—of several of our ancient ancestors.  These are the ushpizin, our imaginary guests.  They are the patriarchs and matriarchs of our people—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and his two wives, Rachel and Leah.  Then there are Joseph, Moses and Aaron, and King David.  In modern days, more women were added to this list, so Miriam, Esther, Deborah and Yael among others, have joined the ranks of the ushpizin, our spiritual guests.

Together, they all represent our tradition.  Individually, however, each has a role to play.  Our most ancient fathers and mothers represent our humble beginnings.  But they also teach us about our unity.  Our entire people, today all 13 or so million of us, are descended from this one family.  Going back to that earliest part of our history, not one of us can claim better heritage.  Not one of us can say that we are more mighty or heroic than another, or that we are born of a higher class.  Our earliest ancestors remind us of our equality.  We are all children of Abraham and Sarah, all a fulfillment of a promise made thousands of years ago, a bargain and a covenant cut between God and Israel.

Joseph, of course, saved our people from extinction.  He taught us about bringing together torn families, about forgiveness, and about making plans for an uncertain future.  But Joseph was also a dreamer, and he taught us to dream and see visions.  Joseph also taught us to remember where we came from, and to always try to find our way back home.  “Remember me,” he exhorts his brothers on his deathbed. “When God takes you back to the land of your ancestors, take my bones with you.” Joseph was the very first visionary Zionist.

Moses gave us the Law.  He gave us the Torah, the Word of God.  Moses gave us our holidays and traditions, our way of life.  He gave meaning and purpose to our existence as Jews, teaching us that holiness was not something you found in seclusion up on the top of some mountain, but rather down on the land below, on the street, in our cities and homes.  Moses taught us that holiness is found in justice, love and compassion.

The Torah and the Rabbis teach that Aaron—Moses’s brother—was a man of peace.  Rather than quarrel, he sought to pacify.  A man of steady hand, he guided our religion forward through the maze of offerings and sacrifices.  Entrusted with hearing the prayers and pleas of the people, he brought them forgiveness and understanding.  And above all, as the one whose daily task it was to light the menorah—the seven-branch candelabra that stood at the opening of the Tent of Meeting—Aaron brought light to the people.  In a world overwhelmed by fear and superstition, by dark and mysterious forces, Aaron represented then—and still does now—enlightenment, joy and an infinite range of possibility. 

David was the king who unified Israel and established a kingdom that lasted for nearly one thousand years.  According to tradition, he authored the book of Psalms, or at least many of the religious poems that that book contains. He established Jerusalem as the eternal capital of his kingdom and laid the foundation for the construction his son, Solomon, would undertake—the building of the Temple of God. 

Miriam, Esther, Deborah—all heroes of our people who stepped up at a time of need and rescued us from sure disaster.  To us today, they represent the need to take action.  Miracles happen, but not only through the Hand of God.  Often enough it takes a human hand to assist God.  We are, after all, God’s partners in Creation, in making this world a better place for all its inhabitants.  And especially in a time and place that saw women as—at best—second class citizens, it was these women who stepped up, who showed us the way forward, who made sure that we knew when, what and how we must take action.  They were the first to liberate women from social oppression, and still to this day they inspire us to see all human beings, regardless of gender, color or faith, as equal in the eyes of God.

These are the ushpizin, the guests that the Rabbis instructed us in days of old to invite into our unassuming sukkot, those threadbare huts that we build with scraps and decorate with the humblest material.  Not built to withstand anything beyond a gentle wind or mild rain, the sukkah is actually one of the most resilient and enduring of our Jewish symbols. It has survived storms, floods and fires.  It has withstood persecution, intolerance and exile.  Who knows, perhaps these ushpizhin, these guests we bring into our homes and lives, are the very reason why this humble structure has lasted so long.

For children, the sukkah is a fun and secure way to enjoy a bit of the outdoors at the turning of the seasons.  For adults, however, it represents that and so much more.  It represents our very existence—precious and beautiful on the one hand, yet also fragile and prone to falling down at a moment’s notice.  The sukkah is the most durable symbol of the Jewish People, a people made strong by our dreams and values, by our traditions and customs, and by our strong and constant devotion to a covenant made thousands of years ago on top a bare mountain—a covenant between God and Humanity, a Covenant of Peace.

May we all prove worthy ushpizin at God’s table, in God’s sukkah, today and every day of our lives. 

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman