{"id":80793,"date":"2020-10-01T10:20:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T07:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=80793"},"modified":"2022-10-09T15:08:23","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T12:08:23","slug":"at-sixes-and-sevens-on-sukkot-and-sacred-vegetation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/at-sixes-and-sevens-on-sukkot-and-sacred-vegetation\/","title":{"rendered":"At Sixes And Sevens: On Sukkot And Sacred Vegetation"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[448,846,680],"acf":{"old_id":"80793","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34011,"related_cahpter":"1116","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"\"Fair moon, to thee I sing, bright regent of the heavens, say, why is everything either at sixes or at sevens?\" \u2013 Gilbert and Sullivan, H.M.S. Pinafore, Act II, 1878","content":"

On Sukkot, we take three branches of trees, and a citron, (etrog<\/em>), clasp them together and shake them up and down and back and forth and dance with them, leading up to the prayers for the life-giving rain on the holiday’s culmination on the Eighth Day of Assembly, Shemini Atzeret<\/em>. Native Americans ain’t got nothing on us.<\/p>\n

During the Great Hallel<\/em>, we shake our sacred vegetation in six different directions \u2013 forward and back, right and left, up and down: the six axes of three dimensional space. However, when saying the name of God, we cease movement, holding the minim <\/em>close to our hearts.<\/p>\n

This is the seventh direction, the one that binds all the others together, not an axis of physical space, but the direction of interiority, of the spirit, the meeting point at the Center. It is a sort of eye of the storm: that point of calm, when we are cognizant of the “still, small voice” (I Kings 19:12), when after being pulled and shaken in all directions, we are at rest, at one.<\/p>\n

But while the number seven is common in Judaism there is something different about this rhythm of 6+1 (which we see also in the week: 6 days of work + Shabbat). The three axes of physical reality each go off in two vectors, making six directions, all organized around and connected at the Center.<\/p>\n

The directions are replete with symbolism, all meeting at the Center, the point of connection and reconnection:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Backward and forward<\/em> movement calls up images of the unending passage of time \u2013 the connection to past and future, of past with future, the intergenerational responsibilities to both progenitors and progeny. We of course stand at the center, in the momentary present, building bridges of sentiment and action between history and memory of what has been, and between dreams and ideals of what yet could be.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Right and left<\/em> speak the language of politics, poignantly reminding us of the need to heal the wounds of our fragmented society: between conservative and progressive, between me\/in-group\/parochial and we\/out-group\/universal. Nobody sees themselves as an extremist \u2013 everybody sees themselves as standing firmly in the Center, surrounded by people and factions who are “overboard” in one direction or the other. We need to expand this Center, building bridges to all, for all.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Up and down<\/em> call out the eternal dyads of heaven and earth, transcendence and immanence, spirit and matter. One of the great unifications that we can strive for is to heal the great rift between body and soul, our temporal physical selves and our divine intimations of eternity, and bring into alignment our spiritual values and our social and ecological reality.<\/p>\n

The pastoral produce is a product of the redolent fecundity of the earth, the transpirational spirit-breath of the air, the radiant energy of the sun, and of the restorative, life-giving waters, of above and below can help ground you, and Center yourself, in our many worlds and realities.<\/p>\n

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