Sermon : On Sleeping Out, Waking to Life

I’ve been explaining the basics of Sukkot to my 5-year-old son Aaron for weeks. It’s a sort of Jewish Thanksgiving--a weeklong harvest festival that runs through Tuesday this year. During Sukkot, Jews construct little booths reminiscent of the ones the ancient Israelites dwelled in on their pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem.

I’ve told him that we’re going to build our own sukkah, just like the ones our ancestors built, and that we’re going to eat and sleep in it as the Bible and Talmud command. How much of this Aaron actually understands I don’t know. But the sleeping out in the back yard part has definitely sunk in.

We put down the back seats in my wife’s Jeep and drove off to a unique Los Angeles establishment called “Feldman’s Sukkah Kits.” They’ve been around, as their letterhead proclaims using the Jewish calendar’s way of reckoning time, “since 5739,” which is 1978 to most people.

Somehow we maneuvered the long clumsy box of poles, hardware, fabric and slats into the car. It hung out the back a little so we strapped the whole thing down, tied a red flag on the end, buckled ourselves in and headed for home. Aaron rode shotgun in his safety seat; sunglasses, juice box and all.

We felt a certain pride in hauling our cargo. It was, I suppose, the Jewish equivalent of strapping a freshly killed deer to the bumper. A 5-year-old and his dad--two mighty Jewish hunters returning home with their prey.

We had big plans for our sukkah. First we put it together. My tools: Black & Decker; Aaron’s, Fisher-Price. It looked a little rickety when we finished, but that’s how everything looks I assemble at home.

Next, it was off to Toys R Us to buy a couple of Power Ranger sleeping bags. Then we packed some snacks, popped some corn, mixed up the hot chocolate, poured it in the thermos, put on our sweats, unrolled the sleeping bags, fired up the flashlights and hiked right out there into the back yard. The rabbi and his son, urban adventurers.

I had it all planned: Ghost stories and songs, jokes and deep talk about the distant stars and whether or not God put them there; about why goldfish and grandparents die and where they go when they do. Then we’d sip some hot chocolate and drift off into a peaceful sleep.

Actually, most of the hot chocolate got spilled inside, outside and underneath the sleeping bags. There were lots of bathroom breaks and lots of rocks underneath the sukkah floor. Cats came around and made scary noises. Birds sang but not so sweetly. The grass was wet. My feet were cold. And there wasn’t much talk of goldfish, God or anything else. Just a couple of guys who’d have been better off in their own beds.

Looking back at it though, Aaron and I learned a lot from the expedition. It was a little reminder of the chill so we might appreciate the warmth. A little fragility so we might appreciate the people who give us strength. A little humility and homelessness so we might appreciate the material richness of our lives. A little reminder that even the best sukkah, and even the best life, is fragile and temporary, exposing us sometimes to the cold.