What’s the best party you’ve ever been to and what defined it? Maybe it was the people or a particularly beautiful setting. Perhaps there were unlimited mini hotdogs Whatever it is, I would imagine a sense of unbridled joy was palpable. For a brief period of time, that joy was impervious, blocking out all the other crap in life.
None of them, I assure you, could hold a candle to the simchat beit ha’shoevah, the ancient water drawing festival that happened in the holy temple in Jerusalem. In the morning, the water would be drawn and poured on the altar, and in the evening, an absolute rager would take place. It was linked to Sukkot because it’s the holiday that is associated with the coming of the rainy season. Thousands of people would flock to Jerusalem to sing, dance, and fire throw(!) the night away. The party was so memorable that the Mishnah Sukkah 5:1 says:
One who did not see the celebration of the place of the drawing of the water never saw celebration in his days.
Now that’s a party. If you never went, you didn’t fully understand what celebration really was. All of the parties that we all pictured would pale in comparison.
But when you really think about it, how could that be? After all, it was still a party in the holy temple, a place of solemnity and prayer. One part of an answer comes from a talmudic debate where the name of the celebration was up for debate. In addition to the aforementioned name, there was another opinion that called it simchat beit ha’chashuvah, the joy of the house of importance. What made it so important? The very channel from which the waters were drawn were created in the initial days of creation. In other words, this rite connected the present with the ancient past.
Even deeper than that, as the 1st Rebbe of Ger notes:
Sukkot is such a universal holiday that it celebrates the unity of all humankind. On Sukkot we are essentially reconnecting with all of humanity and all of creation.
If these waters, he argues, stem all the way back to our universal creation story, it reminds us of the power of all of us coming together in celebration. No matter what was going on during sukkot in the temple times, it was a time in which the particular could dance with the universal. The joy that came from that was unalloyed.
But then we get one more piece from the Beit Yaakov, Reb Yaakov Leiner, the 2nd Rabbi of the Izhbitz/Radzin dynasty. He wonders how good could this party really be?
There is no food or drink mentioned in the talmud, only light and the company. But the essence of joy in life comes from the company of others and the light that comes from a life following your creator. We were created to be in relationship with one another. On this special day, each person had the ability to draw out their own unique goodness for their fellow. Every individual’s gift was unique.
There’s so much that we misvalue in life, most of it material stuff. The Beit Yaakov argues that the best stuff in life is the company of the other and the light we receive from that relationship. What animated this party was the togetherness of the people. , so much of which has been diminished in our world recently.
These last couple of years since October 7th has seen acrimony, division, and rancor amplify in ways many of us have never seen, both within the Jewish world and the larger one. There is so much that’s going to need to be repaired...and yet, I hope for today (and in the hopeful days ahead as this deal actualizes), we can live in this powerful sliver of happiness.
So many of us have prayed for the return of the hostages. So many of us have prayed for the end to this war. We’ve prayed for Israelis and Gazans, food, life, no more rockets, no more sirens, no more bombs, and no more warmongering. It’s been so hard to see our connecting lines and so easy to see the dividing ones.
That strife will still manifest as the treacherous and delicate process of peace unfolds but I really hope that for a bit, we can let the happiness of this moment envelope us. It probably won’t quite compare to the ancient party of the Temple but I imagine for many of us, seeing the hostages return, seeing the warfare end, and seeing literal rebuilding and emotional rebuilding taking place will offer a happiness that we didn’t think possible.
As you navigate your way through these next days, allow the joy in before you read the inevitable think pieces. Be overjoyed that we can tap into our universal humanity for a few moments. Let the light and the goodness of our relationships and togetherness fill us up.
Praying for continued good news and sending wishes for a happiness like we weren’t sure we’d see.
Shabbat Shalom!