Ep 55: Sukkot, Shelter, and Sacrifice

In this week’s episode, April and Tracie mark Sukkot and discuss themes around shelter, safety and security, and sacrifice, and the trade-offs that exist which this holiday helps to illuminate for us.

Content warning: descriptions of animal slaughter/sacrifice

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-55

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com

Learn more about Sukkot here:https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/sukkot-101/

Check out, This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared, by Alan Lew, here: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/alan-lew/this-is-real-and-you-are-completely-unprepared/9780316739085/

Learn more about the Shmita year here: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/

Learn more about MaNishtana (Rabbi Shais Rishon) here: https://manishtana.net/

Check out Brené Brown’s work on fragility here: https://brenebrown.com/

April and Tracie talk about Aurora Levins Morales’ forthcoming poem “Do Not Rise,” in which the poet unpacks the idea of “please rise” during worship and offers an alternate, earth-based, downward-striving spirituality. Learn more about Aurora Levins Morales here: http://www.auroralevinsmorales.com/

Transcript

0:00

- [Tracie] The holiday of Sukkot in which we live in a temporary structure has a lot to teach us about what we give up for the sake of safety and the perception of security.

Trigger warning: 0:12

in this episode, we discuss an Indigenous Senegalese ritual that involves animal sacrifice.- [April] This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice" with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- Tracie, Sukkot is here!(both cheering) I love this holiday so much.- Do you?- I love symbolism and meaning and metaphor and rich content, and kind of like Passover, not quite to the same extent, but Sukkot is just so abundant in its meaning and depth. And like I feel like we could go eight straight years and have something new that we could focus in on from, that's very different from the prior year. So I'm just so excited. And last year, we had such a great conversation around this holiday of booths, I think that's kind of like what the English translation is.- Yeah, it is.- Which is just a weird name, like I think if I were going to have, it would be like the shelter, like the shelter harvest festival or something? I don't know like harvest. Like booth is not, it just doesn't quite-- Yeah, it makes me think of like vendors at a fair or something.- Yeah, like a phone booth or something, instead of this earthy, sturdy yet fragile and temporary enclosure that holds friends and people we love.- Super quick framing, right? Sukkot is this last eight day festival where we're meant to build a sukkah, which the English, as we just said, is booth, but really, that just doesn't-(April quacks) So right, so a sukkah is a temporary structure that has to be open on at least one side, closed on three open on one, and the roof, and this, I think, we will get into this in our conversation. The roof has to be made of natural materials and you must be able to see the sky through it. So you should be able to see stars if you're sitting inside your sukkah and look up through the ceiling and roof. And yeah, I think that I'll stop with that.- Yeah, and that it starts to bring us to a close at the High Holiday season. It's the second or third to last holiday before the final holidays that wrap it up. So we're in the homestretch, especially for any clergy or community lay leaders out there.- Yeah, you're almost through.- You're getting, yeah, we're almost to Cheshvan.- Yeah.- To happy Cheshvan.- Yeah, chazak ve'omatz, strength, strength and resolution, we will get. You will get there, clergy, we believe in you.- So I think, yes, yes, much strength, chazak, chazak, to you, may you continue to go from strength to strength. You're almost (chuckling) at the High Holiday finish line. And potentially for those who aren't clergy, but who are just either hosts or helping, stewarding people around their spiritual journey for any number of reasons or experiences, sending you strength and love, too, and solidarity. I don't know about for you or our listener, but within Judaism, there are certain concepts in particular or images or symbols or rituals that really stand out to me and this concept of shelter, of enclosing, of being safe, as someone who over the course of my life has moved a lot and things, there's a way in which this idea of shelter that I think is a huge theme and an interesting theme that we're gonna dive into around the ways that Sukkot plays on this theme and dissects it and opens it up a little bit. I love the idea of and the practice of, I have never built a sukkah yet. I've just been a-- Guest?- Partaker of, a guest of many lovely hosts, engaging in hachnasat orchim, welcoming guests and friends, but as someone who loves nature, but also has certain fears, there's a real sweetness to me that this holiday has about this both/and of having a shelter, but not a fully complete shelter. And I'm excited to explore and unpack the meaning that this may have and its potential application as it relates to our living in our broader lives, and more specifically with racial justice.- Yeah. So I'm gonna frame this, based on that introduction, I'm gonna keep this going with a quote from Alan Lew's"This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared," which I read for the first time just recently. And it is, he dives into the High Holidays, starting with Tisha B'Av, and all the way through Elul, and then into this current season that we're in. And what he says about a sukkah, he says, "In the sukkah, a house that is open to the world,"a house that freely acknowledges"that it cannot be the basis of our security,"we let go of this need," that is, the need for security."The illusion of protection falls away, and suddenly,"we are flush with our life, feeling our life,"following our life, doing its dance"one step after another." And what really kind of landed for me with that idea, which he keeps talking about the sukkah as a house, which is only an illusion of the house, was the trade-offs that we make. Our houses provide us security and safety, but they also keep us from seeing the stars at night and keep us from our neighbors sometimes and keep, like, there are things-- And nature.- And nature and-- Our proximity and relationship to nature, yeah.- And the natural breezes and you know, so when, when you protect yourself from the rain, you also protect yourself from things that you might actually enjoy. And the rain can be enjoyable, as well. Anyway, I was really left with this sense that if I were to extrapolate that notion, what are the things that I do, consistently, to protect myself that are also, that I am also then giving something up as a result? What am I giving up in order for the protection? And that has felt like a really important and generative question in this season.- Yeah. In this season, as we are entering the first few weeks of the Shmita year, there are many different implications around power and grace that this has from macro to micro in each of our lives to societal choices and decisions. And so, I do think that this is interesting, and I think this basic example or metaphor that Sukkot provides. When I think about how much I depend on my home for safety and how much I love and treasure when I'm in the sukkah, and the different ideas that are possible, and the different kind of relating with friends and family, that being honestly in our natural element, as humans, as mammals, as evolved mammals who still have a very deep relationship with nature that has largely been most often muted in various ways or impaired by modern society. And I think that this just raises, you know, like there's so much here, like we could discuss this for hours, but there's really something to be said for the value of this Torah and wisdom that Sukkot gives us around what does it mean for us to step out of our comfort zone?- I just learned yesterday.- I have a feeling it's spiritual. That's my guess, but we'll see.- And language, language. Yeah I learned this, so I learned this from Shais Rishon, Rabbi Shais Rishon, that the word that is usually translated as sacrifice, like from the root l'kakriv, korban it's usually translated sacrifice, is the same shoresh, the same root as karov, which means close, And so the words for drawing close and for sacrifice, specifically like the burnt offering, the immolation sacrifice, are related. In the actual linguistics from Torah, right, like we sacrifice an animal and burn it up and in so doing, draw closer to the divine, from the Torah stories, right? Obviously, we're not doing sacrifices anymore. So what does it mean?- Well.- We're not doing animal sacrifices on the temple.- Yeah. Jews aren't. I am currently proximate to it with my Muslim partner.- Right.- In Senegalese society, and they have different thoughts and feelings about it. And then I remember my people used to do this too, and it wasn't that, that long ago, just not in my lifetime. Anyway, please continue. (laughs)- Right, great. So we Jews are not making sacrifices, burnt offerings on an altar anymore. And yeah, Baruch Hashem for that. When I, I get a little bit queasy when I read those sections of the Torah about the blood splattering on the altar. And so what is the metaphor, like what is the figurative lesson about sacrifice, about something being burned up and transformed? Including, in what sense is it... It is consumed in order to draw close?- I can't remember, I know this is going off topic, but I've, since my partner knows it's upsetting for me to see animals be slaughtered, he's kind of protected me from it, but on my first trip to Senegal, I can't remember if I've talked about this on the podcast, but.- I don't think so.- We visited an indigenous Senegalese community, my friend and I, and went to see a woman, a matriarch or matriarchal mystic. She gave each of us a personal mystical reading using seashells and in honor of our visit, they slaughtered a goat and sacrificed a goat, and they did this ritual where before they, before they shekhed it, before they slaughtered the goat, they gave us the honor of saying our prayers into the goat's mouth.- Wow.- I also spoke to the goat, for what it's worth. And I think, and my assumption is, without knowing the full explanation is that when the goat was killed, that that the goat's spirit would carry. But so I'm just reminded of what you're saying as someone who's living in a society where some of these things-- And witnessed an actual animal sacrifice.- I thought-- Yeah.- Yeah, yeah, and was treated as an honored guest. But all of this to say, it speaks to your point about this, and then they didn't, well, eventually, they also then used all of the component parts-- Right.- And disemboweled it, but after they cut its throat, but before that, they had us each do this ritual and asked if we were completed of saying our prayers to God into the goat's mouth, which was one of the most intimate and visceral experiences I've ever, and humbling, I've ever had, and also trying to make sense of it around wanting to honor their custom around someone who's very, has a very strong critique of factory farms, also noticing that this wasn't a factory farm. This was one goat that was gonna feed this whole village, like, and also this is a sentient being. And as a student of Thich Nhat Hanh, like I would prefer, I don't always live up to this lately. I killed a beetle this morning in my office, which is not, Thich Nhat Hanh taught me better. I should have captured it and set it free. So I'm not trying to be holier than thou, but just say, you know, but as someone who thinks that every single life is sacred, it just, and also it was a huge honor. Like I'm just a guest here.- Well, it sounds like, and it sounds like they actually honored its sacredness.- Right, yeah, yeah.- But that adds a whole different cast, too. I mean, like, I was just thinking about like what I-- But the burning, this idea of elevation of something being something being done. And then something rising or something.- Right.- A process of transformation occurring in some way, whether it's through burning, whether it's through the slaughter and the soul leaving the goat's body.- Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about sacrificing my comfort in order to sit in a sukkah, or sacrificing my armor.- That's what I was mostly thinking, too. But then you mentioned that your lesson from Rabbi Rishon.- Or like sacrificing my armor that protects me for the sake of closeness.- Oh, ooh!- By being vulnerable with someone.- Whoo.- I mean, that, that's where I was going. And so, and I will say that your very literal sacrifice that you're talking about, actually, I think only like deepens and enriches my thoughts about that. Right? Because there was, it's all a both/and, right? And I think that the loss of an animal's life that you witnessed is a true loss that can be grieved, and also there was all this other stuff, all this other meaning.- Meaning, wisdom-- And closeness that you achieved with your hosts and with the other people that you were with, and with your understanding of how the world works. And so I think that, yeah, I'm buzzing a little bit. This is it's.- And what's coming up for me as you're talking about this, it's the through line between these themes of shelter and what our different structures, institutions, constructs that we continue to engage in because of some of its benefits, even though they come at a high cost, and what we were just talking about regarding historic and present day animal sacrifice within different communities and religions. The theme that's coming up for me around it, that I'm feeling in my body, as you were talking about this is our inherent fragility. You know, it was very humbling to me and it was important, they kind of laughed at me'cause I decided, leveraging my anti-oppressive healing background so I like held my hand, my friend's hand as they were slaughtering, which they thought was adorable and just laughed. But, you know, so I did a good job of not, like I didn't want to be and I wasn't in a place of like I was, I was holding my experience based upon my framework and also holding and honoring the dignity and purpose and clarity that these spiritual leaders had around what, Around a process that they invited us in as a guest. And so I was, I was relieved when they laughed because you're like, oh, haha, cute. You know, that it wasn't, but that they, and they were like, okay, now we continue with this process. But it's this idea of fragility, which I think Brene Brown recently has really championed this. But I think there's just interesting things there, again, many things could be unpacked, but that I think is both with fragility comes opportunity for newness and growth. And I think we tend to think of it as weakness and exposure, but it's also the root of so many new possibilities around any of the different permutations, you know, around any of the different iterations of where we could look at this. The metaphor of the house versus the sukkah and what the sukkah gives us, because every time I've been in a sukkah, even with folks I don't know that well, I can tell you, it was a far more enriching experience than my average meal in a house.- Yeah, yeah.- And some of that was definitely the novelty, but it wasn't. For me, especially as someone who knows, who's aware of the very meaningful and real and continually evolving relationship I have with nature, it was about being with people I love, and being in the elements to somewhere. The feeling, as you said, feeling the breeze on my skin, seeing the fruits hanging, smelling the fragrances, of it being a much more embodied, holistic. I think we were talking about this before we started recording, but like when I'm in the sukkah and this is fun to kind of notice for the first time, kind of all four major parts of me are on. My brain, around the conversation, my spirit, because nature brings my spirit alive when I can see the stars, when I hear the leaves, when I see a lizard, when I see natural life, it brings me to life, right? And the emotions and the physicality of it, the feeling it, the sensing. Like it's just this-- I think even, in the ritual, right, of the lulav, that the shaking of the lulav brings, is so much more embodied than well, okay, context, Reform Jew, so when we daven, we don't actually move a whole lot. But on Sukkot, with the lulav, you're supposed to smell the etrog and the beautiful scent of the citrus and the actual holding and shaking and the sound of the branches. I don't know-- And those things are like possible to do indoors, but like new thoughts are kinda, right, like there's something that, that exposure, there's expansion, it seems possible, when the conditions have that exposure, and that expansion is not possible when we are contracted or locked.- Right.- Within-- You can't put a lock on a sukkah. You cannot put a lock on a sukkah, right?- No, and when that happens, there's different conversations, it shifts things, right? And so I, and I like this idea of thinking about how is that true for other areas in my life where I could choose to be open to my own fragility, but also the possibility for expansion and growth and newness?- Yeah. I think that's such a great question, and I also come back to the sukkah again, like one isn't expected to give up the lock and the fourth wall and the ceiling forever, right? We are not obligated to live in a sukkah 365 days. We're obligated to live in a sukkah for eight, right, eight of the 365. And so, I don't, there's something, too, about the importance of the cycle that is sitting with me as well, about that this is a thing that we need to force ourselves to do, invite ourselves to do, that we get to do in regular intervals and what new spaciousness and expansion and closeness can we-- Yeah, intimacy.- Can we welcome into our lives?- And I just, I wanna name, you know, as I think about briefly, and I feel like we're drawing to a close here, it feels like just the nature-- The energy.- Of our conversation. Yeah, it's like, I feel like we're approaching completion, but I think I just wanna squeeze in one more part here, specifically around racial justice, of what an interesting way to think about racial justice and taking certain courageous, purposeful risks, is that when we do that, that perhaps it's like being in the sukkah and how can we, and that actually often is the case for a number of folks, that they may have some support, but it's not fail-proof, it's not bulletproof the nature of racism being such an adaptive, an enduring challenge. It's complicated. There are a number of variables, kind of like the natural world, but I just love this idea of, but what if we began to think of taking these purposeful, intentional, mindful steps into racially just, vulnerability, intimacy, newness and began associating it with being alive? Like, what if that helped to bring us closer? And if we began thinking of it as bringing us closer to the edge of who we are becoming, rather than it being a vulnerability and a danger? And too, you know, now I'm thinking, like is there a way to have aromatherapy happening that like Sukkot provides? Like how do we, you know, like, it's kind of just interesting. I think the place where I'll end this thought and pass it back to you, Tracie, is like, as we're doing racial justice work, I see a lot of parallels in the structures and safety we have versus the power of the sukkah, and similar to the sukkah, in this case, it's only eight days a year. And I think you should do racial justice more than eight days a year, but it's not necessarily-- Yes, amen, amen. Thank you for saying that out loud.- Where you live, right, but it's not necessarily where you live, but it's a place that you can visit. And are there ways in which, kind of like how you talked around Passover, about the different elements of Sukkot, that you could think about this, around what are the different commandments on Sukkot, and how can we leverage those as it relates to racial justice? How can we invite guests and friends to join us in our learning and our advocacy? How can we nourish ourselves while we're doing this? How can we keep the stars in mind, which I know, as I've been deeply engaged in my racial justice and social justice work over the years, I often appreciated moments when I was either on a plane or often, most often on the subway in Boston, the whole Boston Skyline. And it just helped, perspective, like, right, there's a whole city, there's a whole city, full sky, there's a whole galaxy. My little segment of that is important, but it's also contextualized in this bigger whole. Last, I think I'll say, you know, thinking about a metaphor around this aliveness and the lulav and how can we engage in a lulav-like activity as we're doing our racial justice work around awareness, around what's happening on our sides, in front of us, behind us and around our impact in the world, not just from what we see ahead, but the peripheral stuff of the impact we have, or what's behind what's in our wake of different actions we have and moving forward, how do we think more creatively? Anyway, this is very new and fresh, but I think it fits with the spirit of what we're talking about.- Oh, I love that. I love that as the lulav as a metaphor, like it's on all sides.- Also above, oh, and I forgot also down below and above.- Below and above.- Right? Of like, how are we rooted? Who are the ancestors with whom we are connected, either in our own families or in movement work? And, and in terms of above around any number of ideas, one of which is often people associate above, although I love Aurora Levins Morales' emphasis about divinity being rooted in the earth.- I love that poem.- Right, yeah, I do too, and as someone who's studied African dance for a number of years and other Indigenous dances, which are often earth-based, and you can see that throughout different diasporas, particularly the African diaspora, I just, I really, what she said, like spiritually, intellectually, with what I knew, like it just, it really spoke to, and combined all these things into a Jewish prayer. We'll have to find a way to share and talk about it.- Yeah.- If it's available publicly?- I don't think it is publicly available.- I think her next published work, I think.- We'll ask for permission.- But anyway, but potentially, also often, at times, through the Eurocentric, particularly this perspective of upward spiritually, or it could also be upward in terms of just growth and who we are becoming that might not be fully actualized in terms of our next steps, but in terms of the realm of vision and nascent possibility. So it's a beautiful lulav.- I really like that idea.- Sorry, back to you.- Well, I like the idea of the lulav and then the sukkah and this temporary moment where we're invited to really get rid of, not get rid of, but step out of the things that protect us, not because we don't need to do that the rest of the year, but because the idea is that it's like a bootcamp, right? And it's a bootcamp for these eight days, where you're invited to be super aware, hyper aware of what you gain when you sacrifice the things you thought protected you and aware of your space, literally around you with the six directions of the lulav. And then you carry that into your, back into your home.- Yeah.- After the festival is over, you carry that back into your life. And we're human, and so it fades. We drift and so we come back to the sukkah next year, but there's something that when you started talking about the image, the metaphor of the lulav and the six directions that really feels resonant, that I physically touch those six directions with this natural combination of plants. So that next week, when they are not in my hands, when the lulav is not in my hand and I can't smell it and I can't hear it, I still remember, like with a muscle memory, with a sense memory. I remember the awareness of that space and extrapolating that out metaphorically and spiritually, I don't, this is really, this has been a really powerful conversation for me. I'm gonna be thinking about this stuff for a long time.- Yay! Thanks as always for being such a good friend and partner, Tracie. And thanks to you, friend, for tuning in and joining us. We're so glad to be on this journey with you. Chag sameach.- Chag sameach.- Happy Sukkot. Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @elliothammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or a suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.