Last night was the conclusion of the Jewish festivals of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. These festivals follow the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot. Shemini Atzeret means the ‘Eighth Day of Assembly’ and is a distinct holiday that immediately follows Sukkot. It includes the Yizkor memorial prayer, literally ‘May God remember’ in Hebrew, for departed relatives, and introduces Tefillat Geshem, a prayer for rain, since winter is the rainy season in Israel.
Simchat Torah means ‘Rejoining in the Torah’ and celebrates the conclusion of the annual Torah-reading cycle and its immediate restart, reading from Genesis. Synagogues hold lively processions, including dancing with the Torah scrolls.
The preceding festival, Sukkot, is a seven- to eight-day harvest festival that also commemorates the ‘40 years’ that Israelites wandered in the Sinai Desert after fleeing Egypt. Forty is a symbolic number meaning ‘many’ just as ‘16,000 gopis’ is a symbolic number meaning ‘every soul’. Sukkot means ‘hut’, recalling the temporary shelters that the wandering Jews lived in as homeless refugees. It combines gratitude for the fall harvest with remembrance of divine protection in the wilderness.
So, Jews build a temporary outdoor hut roofed with plant material where they practically live that week. I’ve seen the palm-frond hut built every year for Sukkot in Bombay, in my school, by our Jewish principal. The inside is decorated with attractive harvest produce like oranges, pomegranates and gourds. Warm lighting is the norm, and Indian Jews were known to light diyas, set carefully away from the inflammable walls of the palm hut, and also string up chains of electric lights as is done for Diwali and Gurpurab.
Thus, even amid wealth, the Jews remember the plight of their ancestors with humility and respect. During prayer, worshippers shake a symbolic bundle of lulav (palm frond, myrtle and willow) and an etrog (citrus fruit) in six directions to show that God is everywhere.
I’ve read that unlike other Jewish holidays, Sukkot does not have strictly prescribed foods. Because meals must be carried outdoors into the hut, menus are kept hearty but simple. Across different cultures, stuffing vegetables or dough signifies abundance, symbolising a wrapping of ‘hidden blessings’. Ashkenazi or Western Jewish families serve stuffed cabbage rolls and knishes, usually potatoes in dough, and I recall trying my first knish years ago from a street vendor’s cart in Manhattan, for all of one dollar.
Sephardic or Eastern Jew households serve meat-stuffed onions and stuffed grape leaves (dolma). I like dolma and cabbage rolls, and I once served vegetarian versions as side dishes at small dinner parties for friends. They were stuffed with a savoury rice-and-mushroom mix, with ‘curry sauce’ (white sauce flavoured with Bolst’s curry powder) poured on top. My friends liked the gentle novelty of it, as much as they liked carrot-date salad, another popular Sukkot dish.
Dipping challah bread in honey is customary during Sukkot. This deeply rooted Jewish custom serves as a physical prayer for a ‘good and sweet new year’ (Shanah Tova U'metuka). While this ritual is mostly associated with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Jewish tradition extends the practice through the entire autumn holiday season, including Sukkot.
I particularly like that the Jews sang and danced to celebrate last night’s festival, Simchat Torah, or Rejoining in the Torah. That is such an important part of Indian culture, too, that one feels an instant affinity, because both happen for the same reason—in thanksgiving to God for blessings received. Despite their tormented history of centuries, the Jews exude positivity and never miss a chance to rejoice, which, too, feels very Indian.
Indeed, a Jewish devotional verse about the human need to celebrate holy events goes: “Whenever the Israelite rejoices in their festivals, praise the Lord, adorn the table with food and don fine clothes, the angels above inquire: ‘Why do the Israelites indulge themselves so much?’ God replies, ‘They have an important guest with them today.’”
I have read that during the rest of the year, it is customary to dip challah in salt. This tradition stems from biblical times, when the dining table represented a holy altar and salt represented the bond with God. However, from Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot, honey replaces salt as a joyful, hope-driven change.
In the Torah, honey is a recurring symbol of divine favour and agricultural abundance. Israel is famously described as a ‘land of milk and honey’. Thus, dipping bread, ‘the staff of life’ in that culture, in honey expresses gratitude for the sustenance provided by God. I thought of that at Mount Nebo in Jordan, when I saw ‘the Promised Land’ that Moses is believed to have been shown from that very spot. And I thought of the ancient Jewish prophets again, when taken to visit ‘Abel’s tomb’ in Syria, created by an Ottoman governor in the late 16th century.
Moreover, in Jewish mysticism and classical poetry like the ‘Song of Songs’, the teachings of the Torah are frequently compared to the sweetness of honey. The ‘Song of Songs’, or Solomon’s Song in the Old Testament, is akin to our Gita Govinda, where romantic love is an allegory for the jivatma’s love for the Paramatma. In the ‘Song of Songs’ 5:1, the speaker says, “I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk,” celebrating the fullness and satisfaction of that love.
May that positive, joyous spirit so ardently celebrated by Jews and Indians be shared by all humanity.
Renuka Narayanan | FAITHLINE | Senior journalist
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
