A Time For Collective Thirst

The Tishrei festivals teach us that we cannot entrench ourselves in our illusion of perfection. We are all willow branches, we are all a prayer, a dialogue born of deep recognition of our imperfection. For 5785, this lesson needs urgent internalization on a national level.

Tishrei 5785; October 2024

The Sukkos festival ends with a symbol of thirst, embodied in the willow. Each of the four species has its unique quality, and the willow’s is plain: yearning, an intense craving for water. Left on its own, the willow dries up and withers. It longs and thirsts for water, and even in its natural growth, it gravitates toward its life source by the stream. The Arizal already noted that the Hebrew word for “stream” (נחל) is an acronym for the words in the verse: “נַפְשֵׁנוּ חִכְּתָה לַה'” (“Our soul waits for Hashem,” Psalms 33:20). The willow represents a thirst for God.

In the thoughts below, I wish to offer a reflection on Jewish thirst, specifically on a collective level. As we approach the year 5785, it seems that we, all of us, must sense this deep thirst.

 

The Thirst of Prayer

Sukkos features a central element of prayer expressed in the custom of Hoshanos. Regarding the mitzvah of taking the four species, the verse places joy at the center: “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree, palm branches, twigs of a braided tree, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before Hashem your God seven days” (Vayikra 23:40). This is also how the Rambam explains it, linking joy to the commandment of the lulav: “The 169th mitzvah is that we are commanded to take the lulav and rejoice before Hashem with it for seven days.”

Yet, the Mishnah tells us that we wave the lulav not only at “Give thanks to Hashem for He is good, for His kindness endures forever,” a verse celebrating the joy of the harvest, but also in prayer: “Where do they wave [the lulav]? At the beginning and end of ‘Give thanks to Hashem,’ and during ‘Please, Hashem, save now,’ according to the School of Hillel.” This raises a question: If the lulav is associated with joy, why do we wave it during words of supplication?

The Mishnah reveals a profound insight into human nature. Indeed, we rejoice in the harvest—this is the primary joy of Sukkot. The four species symbolize various elements of the plant world, the source of nourishment and life, and taking them together, especially in an agricultural society, brings great joy. However, the word “simcha” does not only convey the sense of exuberance (in English: joy), as in “I sent you away in joy and songs with timbrel and lyre” (Bereishis 31:27). It also connotes contentment, as seen in the verse, “May Hashem rejoice in His works” (Psalms 104:31), and in many other verses (e.g., “Rejoice, Zevulun, in your going out,” Devarim 33:18).

Simcha, in the sense of contentment, involves an acceptance of our incompleteness and our dependence on others. A person who sees himself as perfect, complete, independent of others, will never experience contentment

Simcha, in the sense of contentment, involves an acceptance of our incompleteness and our dependence on others. A person who sees himself as perfect, complete, independent of others, will never experience contentment. He or she will endlessly expend energy maintaining the illusion of perfection—an illusion that prevents us from forming deep connections with others. The prayer of the lulav, “Please, Hashem, save now,” acknowledges our deficiency and creates space for a relationship with God, alongside other relationships. It allows us to rejoice in the hope for goodness, as the Ramchal writes in his Discourse on Hope: “The one who hopes is always in joy without sorrow.”

As noted at the outset, the willow symbolizes longing and yearning. During “Give thanks to Hashem for He is good,” the focus is on the other species: the beauty of the etrog, the uprightness of the lulav, and the fullness of the myrtle. But in “Please, Hashem, save now,” the focus is on the willow. Through the willow, the entire bundle becomes a prayer—a hoshanah. As I heard several times from my Rebbe, Rav Moshe Shapira zt”l, the willow embodies the soul’s movement of “I am but a prayer” (Tehillim 109:4). With all the abundance of the harvest, we are nothing but a prayer.

 

Between the Ideal and the Real

The Sages call the first of Tishrei “Rosh Hashanah.” In another sense, however, all the Tishrei festivals are “Rosh Hashanah,” as Yechezkel refers to Yom Kippur: “In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at Rosh Hashanah, on the tenth of the month” (40:1). Indeed, the Mishnah states that on Sukkos, we are judged concerning water, the very essence of life itself. This teaches us that the period of judgment and compassion, Rosh Hashanah, extends throughout the Tishrei festivals. During this time, we engage with one central theme, a theme that always occupies us but comes into sharp focus during these days: the gap between the ideal and the real.

No matter how much effort we invest, sin will always cling to our heels. Lack, imperfection, disappointment, and failure—all these define the human condition

When Hashem “set man apart from the beginning” (as the Yom Kippur liturgy states), He endowed humanity with a unique and extraordinary quality—a built-in gap between the ideal and the real. No matter how much effort we invest, sin will always cling to our heels. Lack, imperfection, disappointment, and failure—all these define the human condition. Humanity grapples with the problem of this gap in various ways, from complete denial to multiple systems—political, social, and religious—that aim to mitigate the gap’s many consequences. Yet, the Torah offers another way to address the gap: through an ongoing dialogue with Hashem. God gave us free will and the inclination to fall short, and thus “You set man apart from the beginning.” Because of this, as the prayer continues, “You allowed him to stand before You.”

The purpose of the Tishrei festivals is to recalibrate, year after year, the dialogue between us and God that emerges from the gap. On Rosh Hashanah, at the beginning of the journey, we have nothing but the sound of the shofar, a wordless voice. As the Days of Repentance pass, we find the words to express this inner voice and come before Hashem with prayer and supplication, attaining His great compassion on Yom Kippur. By Sukkos, all of nature—the harvest, the Sukkah, the four species—becomes prayer and supplication. The entire world becomes a hoshanah. Existence itself, life itself, becomes a dialogue between us and our Creator, all because of the existential gap—the gap between the ideal and the real that we stubbornly attempt to bridge, yet know will always remain.

The endless thirst of the willow is a thirst for connection: connection with Hashem and connection with others. Were it not for the existential gap between the ideal and the real, our relationships would be purely instrumental, functional at best. The gap creates the thirst and the thirst creates longing, connection, love—the things that get us out of bed every morning. Denying the gap and attempting to overcome it, as humanity has done from the dawn of history, is tantamount to denying life itself.

 

Collective Thirst

Modern man—or perhaps man in general—tends to experience thirst on a personal, individual level. We sense our own needs and unfulfilled desires, and these move us to come before God in prayer and supplication. Where do our prayers naturally focus? They address the most crucial matters in life—what our Sages call “children, life, and sustenance.” Health. Livelihood. Children. We can stop there, but there is something else we seek: purpose. Role. Vision. Where lies the destiny? Where is the dialogue between us and our Creator, renewed each year on Rosh Hashanah, leading? This, too, is an essential part of our prayers, encapsulated in the plea: “And grant us our portion in Your Torah.”

Yet in 5785, the feeling is that we must invest and focus specifically on the public gap, on our collective thirst—that of the entire Jewish people and of the various groups and sectors that comprise it.

Rain is not a private matter; it is connected to the state of the nation, the overall condition of the Jewish people, and that is where we must sense our primary thirst

A few years ago, a respected rabbi commented that regarding the national situation of the Jewish people, “thank God, there is no longer an existential threat.” Our prayers had moved to another realm. In 5784, we received a jarring, indescribably intense reminder that we have to feel the thirst in all its intensity—not just on a personal level, but primarily on a national and collective level. The Hoshanah Rabbah prayers focus on water, on the rain that bridges heaven and earth, the ideal and the real. Rain is not a private matter; it is connected to the state of the nation, the overall condition of the Jewish people, and that is where we must sense our primary thirst. The dialogue between Hashem and us must happen on a communal level, and each individual must join the conversation from his or her private place within the national body.

Even dialogue between us, among the Jewish People—also born of a sense of lack and imperfection—must take place on the public level. Sapir Cohen, released from Hamas captivity in December 2023, testified to how our enemies draw hope from our internal divisions, from discord and hostility, from those who declare, “We are not brothers,” and act accordingly. The correction of this flaw will derive from internalizing how none of us—not as individuals, not as groups—is perfect.

Politics is the realm of falsehood, but its most heinous lie is the pretense that “we are fine” while problems lie only with “the others.”

Amid the supreme heroism of thousands of soldiers and their families, of captives and their families, and of everyone who took part in various support efforts, 5784 will be remembered as the year of “preconceptions”—a year in which it became clear to all how imperfect we are. The Charedim. The secular. The religious-Zionist. The traditional. We all experience the deep gap between the ideal and the real, and we all represent it. Politics is the realm of falsehood, but its most heinous lie is the pretense that “we are fine” while problems lie only with “the others.” Maybe they are not, but we are certainly not fine, and only by accepting this premise can we begin a conversation of repair—a dialogue with Hashem and a dialogue with others, with all our fellow Jews.

The harsh and closed-minded statements made by political figures from across the spectrum derive from the same crude lie: “We are fine; it’s the others who must bend and adjust.” In response to the demand for change, no matter how minor, a prominent Charedi political figure recently said (in a private conversation) that there was no need to address these demands because “they need us [they need our votes], and they will pay handsomely for it.” How tragic. The Tishrei festivals teach us that we cannot entrench ourselves in our illusion of perfection. We are all willow branches, we are all prayer, a dialogue born of deep recognition of our imperfection.

As heroes continue to fall in our defense (may we know no more tragedy), we are duty-bound to be worthy of their sacrifice. The path to rectification begins here. We need to be willows—recognizing that we need Hashem and that we need others, those who are different from us. We must be thirsty, humble, and ready to change.

***

In 5785, after all we have endured throughout 5784, our prayers are those of the collective: “Establish us like a tree planted by streams of water. Redeem us from all plague and affliction. Adorn us with love like a crown. Clothe us in strength and greatness. Crown us with a royal crown. Show us compassion and mercy. Bring us joy and exultation. Hosha Na. Strengthen us, God of Jacob, forever. Hosha Na.” May we merit it.

 

3 thoughts on “A Time For Collective Thirst

  • Yasher Koach-we are truly our own worst enemies and we must truly learn how to appreciate the best icharacter traits aka Midos Tovos in each other

  • Our son Dovid, now Rosh Kollel of the St Louis Kollel, once planted an aravah from Sukkot near our deck, and it’s now a big tall tree. We had to prune it to not overhang our schach.

  • The Lulov bundle itself represents the need for/desire of/actuality of unity we need as Am HaShem. Eilu ve’eilu is not be’de’avad but le’chatchilah. As you wrote beautifully, may we come closer in the coming year

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