Thirsty? #Sukkot#devartorah

Just below the snowy peak of Mt. Shasta, near the headwaters of the Sacramento River in California, an icy-cold underground spring gushes out of the side of a cliff. People flock there to fill their jugs with the refreshing liquid.

Water quenches our thirst and sustains our life. Sukkot begins Wednesday night with holiday services Thursday and Friday mornings at 9:30 AM. When the Temple stood in Jerusalem there was a joyous celebration called Simchat Bet Hashoavah. “Every day of the year, after the sacrifice was burned, an offering of wine was poured on the altar. During Sukkot, there was also a water libation (nisukh hamayim). Some have suggested that it was a folk rite, an inducement for rain made by pouring out water at the season’s onset, transformed by the rabbis into a symbolic Temple ritual.

“Each morning of Sukkot, the priests went to the pool of Siloah (Silwan) near Jerusalem to fill a golden flask. Shofar blasts greeted their arrival at the Temple’s Water Gate. They then ascended and poured the water so that it flowed over the altar simultaneously with wine from another bowl. 

“Based on Isaiah’s promise “With joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation” (12:3), rejoicing began at the end of the first day and took place every night except Shabbat. Talmud recorded that “one who had never witnessed the Rejoicing at the Place of the Water Drawing had never seen true joy in his life.” (Although the celebration was for the libation that would be made the next morning it was named for the preparation for the ritual — the water drawing — which the rabbis said showed that getting ready was sometimes of greater merit than the mitzvah, or commandment, itself because of its positive effect on the person doing it.)” (https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/simchat-beit-hashoavah-the-water-drawing-festival/)

Although we don’t perform this ritual today, Sukkot culminating with Simkhat Torah reminds us that we have continual source of spiritual refreshment. Of course I’m referring to the Torah which has been compared to water because revives those who study it.

Are you thirsty today? This Sukkot make Torah study part and parcel of your week. Be on the lookout when our adult continuing education classes begin after the holidays and our scholar lecture series begin with Dr. Benjamin Gampel who will explore with us the Jewish experience of the “Golden Age of Spain.”

Chag Samayakh and Shabbat Shalom,