Leap of Faith: Life is for living
How can we find purpose and meaning this Succot?
Life is transient, unstable, and genuinely difficult. How can we find purpose and meaning, maybe even joy, against this backdrop? This is the question asked by the author of Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) in the megillah we read during the festival of Succot.
If you do one thing this Succot, read Kohelet. Kohelet tells of how he set out to pursue the things in life that he thought would bring him happiness. When he accumulated and achieved all he had set out for, he found himself deeply unsettled and disturbed by the futility of it all. Kohelet feels despondent about how ephemeral even those things that so many aspire to turned out to be. We’re mortal, objects are breakable, everything is fleeting.
Judaism is a future-oriented tradition. Our texts are deeply focused on our descendants and on bringing a different world into being. Kohelet is a momentary antidote to our future obsession. He knows that instability and fear about the future can be paralysing. He’s also learnt the hard way that focusing on what you don’t have can seed deep feelings of inadequacy, and that so much of social interest in achievement and accumulation is about projection and imagination rather than reality. Reading Kohelet’s slightly moody musings offers a counterbalance to the weight of the world that is sitting heavily on our shoulders.
Rabbi Harold Kushner writes of Kohelet’s message: “Instead of brooding over the fact that nothing lasts, [Kohelet says] accept that as one of the truths of life, and learn to find meaning and purpose in the transitory, in the joys that fade. Learn to savour the moment, even if it does not last forever. In fact, learn to savour it because it is only a moment and will not last. Moments of our lives can be eternal without being everlasting.”
Yom Kippur took us to a place where we sat heavily with the gravity of every action we take in the world; Sukkot brings a different energy. During Sukkot we’re reminded that we can’t live our lives only through earnest and detached contemplation, sitting in white and fasting, removed from the world. We also have to savour and embrace the experience of living, and we have to understand that it’s the ups and downs of life that create the texture of our experiences, that make it real. Life is precious because it is finite, and Succot pulls us back down to earth and impels us to understand that, and to live it well.
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