Resilience, insecurity and joy.

Monday 30 December

It's a slightly odd time to be writing about the Jewish festival of Succot (or Tabernacles) given that it takes place in September or October, and is very much Autumn festival associated with the gathering in of the last harvest rather than surviving through the depths of Winter.

But maybe there is something to learn from Succot during the dark days and nights of January and February that lie ahead.

After all, Succot is the Jewish festival of resilience, insecurity and joy.

It felt to me this year that it encapsulated the continual struggle for balance
grieving and living,
trauma and growth,
despair and joy.

The central object is the Succah: 
a temporary, 
incomplete, 
fragile hut 
that we put up in our gardens for the week, decorate and, weather permitting, enjoy sitting in for the odd meal.

It reminds us how our lives are transient and so delicately poised,
how the simplest moments can be the most beautiful,
how change is the only constant,
how every day must be seized and how every opportunity must be made the most of,
how there but for the grace of God go I.

And it reminded me of the pictures that Shani used to make to decorate the Succah.

In his introductory essay to his Succot Machzor (prayer book), Rabbi Jonathan Sacks discusses Kohelet, a biblical book that we read on Succot and which, tradition has it, was written by King Solomon, the king that had everything: vast wealth, incredible intellect, the builder of the Temple in Jerusalem, and yet who wrote a book whose central theme seems to be 'futility, futility, all is futility'.

As Rabbi Sacks says:

Implicit in Kohelet's life is a story about Solomon's life as a search for security in terms of what we have, what we own, and what we can control. But Succot tells us why this is a false quest. Because you can live in a hut with only leaves for a roof, exposed to the wind, the cold and the rain, and still rejoice.

And it is joy, not monumental architecture, that defeats the fear of death, because it lifts us beyond the self: joy is something that we share with others.

To know that life is full of risk and yet to affirm it, to sense the full insecurity of the human situation and yet to rejoice: this, for me, is the essence of faith.

Judaism is no comforting illusion that all is well in this dark world. It is instead the courage to celebrate in the midst of uncertainty, and to rejoice even in the transitory shelter of the Succah, the Jewish symbol of home.

And to me, this becomes a wonderful guide to living in a world of grief, particularly grief for a little girl whose magical smile brought so much joy to so many people in her oh so brief life.

Being resilient is about balancing both grieving and living in times of tragedy, and finding ways of bringing joy into life even when it has no right to be there, and even when it can sometimes be really painful to do so.

Joy helps us share the burden with friends and family, and even to forget it for a little while, or at least to help us remember that life goes on.