As soon as the shofar is blown after Neilah, there’s one thing I’m typically thinking about (in addition to my break fast meal): Sukkot. After an intense month of selichot, teshuva and literally praying for our lives, I look forward to the lighter holiday of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, which symbolizes fall, family, feasting and fun. But this year, like others, I’m conflicted.
How do we celebrate Sukkot — zman simchateinu -— the holiday that has always been synonymous with unadulterated joy, when it is now connected to perhaps the darkest day in Israel’s history?
It can be no coincidence that we can find some guidance in the very megillah we read on the Shabbat of Sukkot, Megillat Kohelet, attributed to Shlomo Hamelech. Chapter 3, famously opens with:
לַכֹּ֖ל זְמָ֑ן וְעֵ֥ת לְכׇל־חֵ֖פֶץ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּׁמָֽיִם
עֵ֤ת לִבְכּוֹת֙ וְעֵ֣ת לִשְׂח֔וֹק עֵ֥ת סְפ֖וֹד וְעֵ֥ת רְקֽוֹד׃
עֵ֤ת לֶֽאֱהֹב֙ וְעֵ֣ת לִשְׂנֹ֔א עֵ֥ת מִלְחָמָ֖ה וְעֵ֥ת שָׁלֽוֹם׃
There is a time and a season for everything, a time for every experience under heaven: A time for weeping and a time for laughing; A time for wailing and a time for dancing; A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace.
Is it so simple that we can compartmentalize our emotions and actions? Life does not always fit into these clean categories: happy or sad, hatred or love.
As I wrestled with this thought, the incredible story of the Slotky family came into my inbox. Two brothers, Master Sgt. (res.) Noam Slotky, 31, and Sgt. First Class Yishay Slotky, 24, were both killed on October 7 in the fighting near Kibbutz Alumim. It is a story of unspeakable tragedy.
And yet, there is also joy in the Slotky home this year. In the wake of this horror, Shifra, their sister, met her future husband, Neriyah, whom she may never have met were it not for the tragedy. Thanks to Israel Channel 24 and the Barkai Center for Practical Rabbinics, we were able to show a video of the family and share their story on October 7 with our students at Ramaz. Link can be found at https://vimeo.com/1015133736?share=copy#t=0 (תרגום כתבה on Vimeo).
In showing this video and discussing it, our students were able to model the incredible lessons of this heroic family. Our teachers asked them to share their emotions after watching the story. They felt sadness and joy, chaos and order, all at the same time. Through our conversations, we all realized and watched this family show that it is possible to mourn and dance at the same time.
Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), the incredible Israeli poet, shared his take on Kohelet in a poem called, “Kohelet Wasn’t Right/A Man in his Life/,” “קהלת לא צדק/אדם בחייו,” one that echoes the lessons of the Slotky story and gives us a lens on how we may be able to enter into Sukkot and Simchat Torah this year.
In this poem, he writes,
אדם בחייו אין לו זמן שיהיה לו
זמן לכל.
ואין לו עת שתהיה לו עת
לכל חפץ. קהלת לא צדק כשאמר כך.
A man doesn’t have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn’t have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
was wrong about that.
אדם צריך לשנוא ולאהוב בבת אחת,
באותן עיניים לבכות ובאותן עיניים לצחוק
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
As we enter this season of joy, let’s use the Slotky family and Yehuda Amichai as our teachers. We should have the strength to both laugh and cry, to mourn and dance, to hate and love. And even to live in both despair and hope.
Let us understand and model for our children, our students, and ourselves that, as difficult as it may be, part of the human condition is to hold on with passion to opposite emotions and do so on this chag with both broken and full hearts.
Rabbi Aaron Frank is upper school principal at the Ramaz School in Manhattan.
