Sukkot, hypocritically speaking

Most years, as Sukkot approaches, my columns have focused on what I have called the “myth-understanding” too many “modern” Jews have about this all-important pilgrimage festival and its rituals, which they see as a relic of an ancient past filled with customs that have no place in today’s world.

My focus this year, however, is on the hypocrisy inherent in how too many in the observant Jewish world scrupulously observe Sukkot and its attendant rituals — but ignore why we have a Sukkot and what the true purpose is of the holiday and its rituals.

There is no credit given for observing Sukkot and its rituals. There is no punishment given for not observing them, either. They and their ilk exist solely to call attention to what must be observed: God’s code of morality and ethics as it is set out in the Written Law and expanded upon by the Oral Law.

In this case, Sukkot and its rituals are meant to remind us of the Torah’s clearly unambiguous requirement to protect our world and everything in it from the ravages of climate change and global warming. The scientific evidence that this planet is facing an existential threat is irrefutable, no matter how loudly climate-denying politicians and others shout otherwise. If we ignore those laws, and if we vote for those politicians, celebrating Sukkot and performing its rituals are hypocritical acts for which there are debits given and even “punishments” of a sort.

We do not wear tzitzit, for example, because the Torah says to wear them. We wear tzitzit because the Torah wants us to “look upon [the tzitzit] and be reminded of all the mitzvot of the Lord and fulfill them, so that you will…remember and observe all [of God’s] mitzvot and be holy before your God.” (See Numbers 15:39.)

The same is true of tefillin (see Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18), and even Shabbat observance, which Exodus 31:13 and 17 refer to as “a sign.” What Shabbat is a sign for are the commandments in Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15 which, when combined, form the ultimate social justice commandment. Observing Shabbat while ignoring what Shabbat stands for is a waste of time.

Among other things, Shabbat is probably the most environmentally protective day there is. It demands that we forego technology (unless it is used for Shabbat-consistent purposes and in a Shabbat-consistent way) and smell the roses — literally and figuratively — by appreciating the world around us and the people in it.

Sukkot and its rituals bring that message home by placing us in the midst of once-living things and insisting that we dwell therein for seven days, despite the fragility of that dwelling. Doing so underscores our Torah-mandated responsibilities to protect our seriously climate-threatened world.

This is achieved in various ways, including by interconnecting four species. We bind together a vegetable (the palm branch, aka the lulav), two branches from an aromatic tree (the willow) and three from an aromatic shrub (the myrtle), and a fruit (the citron, aka the etrog). These three are “bound together” by specially prepared pieces of palm. Each morning, we put the lulav in our right hand and the etrog in our left hand, bring our hands together, recite a blessing, and then wave the whole package in six directions: east, west, north, south, towards the sky, and towards the earth. It is all about the environment and our responsibilities to it.

In addition to these rituals there are several water-dependent ones. These include praying for rain on Sukkot’s “eighth day” (Shemini Atzeret, which is actually a separate festival), reciting a number of environmental supplications that are embedded in the litany of Hoshanot prayers during morning services, and the re-creation in many communities of the Simchat Bet HaSho-ayvah, the Water-Drawing Festival that was a Temple-based celebration that also included prayers for an abundance of clean, fresh water throughout the world.

Let me be clear about this. The Torah demands that we actively engage in protecting this planet. As the late and much-missed Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said, “Judaism is the first faith to see the care of the environment as a religious duty, bound up with the legacy of creation itself.” (Emphasis mine.)

It is a religious duty, plain and simple. Sukkot and its attendant rituals are the memory devices the Torah supplies to keep us focused on our environmental obligations. There is no point in observing Sukkot while ignoring what it stands for.

Given the imminent existential threat that global warming has become, as recent scientific data make very clear, the most important category of Torah law is that of pikuach nefesh, the preservation of life above practically everything else. The annual global death rate caused by air pollution alone is estimated at 8.1 million people. Between January 2023 and mid-2024, nearly 21 million people died from environmental-related causes of all kinds. If the Torah said nothing else about the environment, pikuach nefesh alone would require us to be proactive in helping to resolve the climate crisis. And for the record, pikuach nefesh concerns must always be approached as if the threats are real, just in case (see, for example, the discussion in the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Yoma 84a and b), and that includes all the climate skeptics among us.

Judaism, of course, has much specifically to say about protecting the environment.

According to the commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra, “man is God’s ‘pakeed’ over the earth.” “Pakeed” is a specific term meaning a steward assigned to carry out a specific task. In this case, Ibn Ezra said, that task is found in Genesis 2:15: “And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it.’”

Along that line, I often quote a 1,500-year-old midrash that could have been written today. It has God taking the First Man on a tour of the Garden of Eden, after which “God said to him: ‘See how beautiful and valued are My creations…. Be sure that you do not ruin and destroy My world because, if you do destroy it, there will be no one to come after you to repair it.” (See Kohelet Rabbah 7:13:1.)

One of the clearest Torah mandates for environmental stewardship is bal tashchit: do not destroy. The source text in Deuteronomy 20:19 appears amid some of the Torah’s laws of warfare, and it specifically references fruit trees, but it encompasses the wanton destruction of just about everything, natural resources included. The Babylonian Talmud tractate Shabbat (67b) applies it to all forms of fuel oil, replenishable (e.g. olive oil) and non-replenishable (e.g. motor oil). Maimonides, the Rambam, extended it to include “anyone who breaks vessels, tears clothing, demolishes a building, stops up a spring, or destroys food needlessly transgresses the prohibition of bal tashchit.” (See his Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 6:10.)

Nearly 750 years ago, Rabbi Aharon Halevi of Barcelona ruled that “not even a grain of mustard” could be destroyed without purpose. He said this in a ruling that, in effect, promotes recycling. (See his Sefer Ha-Chinuch No. 529.)

To the late Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, bal tashchit is the foundation on which all Jewish environmental law rests: “Do not destroy anything! [This] is the first and most general call of God.” Everything in this world, including all creatures great and small, are “God’s property,” he wrote, and if we recognize that, we will “ waste nothing of what belongs to their Owner.” (See his Commentary to Deuteronomy 20:19.)

The Torah’s concern for the environment is also evident in its commandments in Exodus 23 and Leviticus 25 to give the land a year-long Shabbat of its own every seventh year. Studies have shown that allowing a field to lie fallow for just one year restores its ability to produce.

This world is God’s world. As God said at Sinai, “All the earth is Mine.” Immediately after saying this, however, God added: “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (See Exodus 19:5- 6.) There is a powerful message in those statements being joined together. It is a message we are meant to deliver the same way we are meant to deliver all of God’s messages to the world — by the example of how we live our lives. The message in this case is that God is the landlord, and we are obligated to care for all of God’s property, meaning all of God’s creation.

Sukkot and its rituals remind us of that and are designed to spur us into action. If we do not act, or if we help put climate deniers in power, we would be ignoring what Sukkot and its attendant rituals stand for.

A case in point is the gubernatorial race next month here in New Jersey between the Democrat, Mikie Sherrill, and the Republican, Jack Ciattarelli.

Their visions sharply diverge. Ciattarelli opposes climate mandates, the recently signed Clean Energy Act, and all offshore wind projects and the financial incentives for them. He does not consider climate change to be an urgent threat, vows to withdraw the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and wants to reopen shuttered power plants and convert them to natural gas. Sherrill, for her part, emphasizes renewable energy, infrastructure reform, and climate resilience.

However you celebrate Sukkot, may it live up to its liturgical title: “the time of our great joy.” And may we all live up to why we celebrate Sukkot.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org.