Kohelet., Amichai and Wisdom for this Simchat Torah

As soon as the shofar is blown after Neilah, there’s one thing I’m typically thinking about (in addition to my break-fast meal): Sukkot. After an intense month of selichot, teshuva, and literally praying for our lives, I look forward to the lighter holiday of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, which symbolize fall, family, feasting, and fun. But this year, like countless other people, I’m conflicted.

How do we celebrate Sukkot — zman simchateinu — the holiday that is synonymous with unadulterated joy, when it is now connected to perhaps the darkest day in Israel’s history?

It can be no coincidence that we find some guidance in the very megillah we read on Shabbat Chol Hamoed Sukkot, Kohelet, attributed to Shlomo HaMelech. Chapter 3 famously opens with: 

לַכֹּ֖ל זְמָ֑ן וְעֵ֥ת לְכׇל־חֵ֖פֶץ תַּ֥חַת הַשָּׁמָֽיִם 

עֵ֤ת לִבְכּוֹת֙ וְעֵ֣ת לִשְׂח֔וֹק עֵ֥ת סְפ֖וֹד וְעֵ֥ת רְקֽוֹד׃ 

עֵ֤ת לֶֽאֱהֹב֙ וְעֵ֣ת לִשְׂנֹ֔א עֵ֥ת מִלְחָמָ֖ה וְעֵ֥ת שָׁלֽוֹם׃   

There is a time and a season for everything, a time for every experience under heaven: A time for weeping and a time for laughing; A time for wailing and a time for dancing; A time for loving and a time for hating; A time for war and a time for peace.

Is it so simple that we can compartmentalize our emotions and actions? Life does not always fit into these clean categories: happy or sad, hatred or love. As I wrestled with this thought, the incredible story of the Slotky family came into my inbox.

Two brothers, Master Sgt. (res.) Noam Slotky, 31, and Sgt. First Class Yishay Slotky, 24, were both killed on October 7 in the fighting near Kibbutz Alumim. It is a story of unspeakable tragedy. And yet, there is also joy in the Slotky home this year. In the wake of this horror, Shifra, sister of Noam and Yishay, married her husband, Neriyah, whom she may never have met were it not for the tragedy. Thanks to Israel’s Channel 24 and the Barkai Center for Practical Rabbinics based in Modiin, Ramaz was able to show its students a video of the family’s story as part of October 7th programming. The link can be found here.

As part of the discussions that followed the video, students were asked to share their emotions. They reported feeling sadness, joy, chaos, and order, all at the same time, demonstrating that for both the family and the students, it is possible to mourn and dance at the same time.

Celebrated Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000), in the poem “קהלת לא צדק/אדם בחייו (Kohelet Wasn’t Right/A Man in His Life),” echoes the lessons of the Slotkys’ story and gives us a lens through which we may be able to enter into Sukkot and Simchat Torah this year.

אדם בחייו אין לו זמן שיהיה לו  

זמן לכל. ואין לו עת שתהיה לו עת 

לכל חפץ. קהלת לא צדק כשאמר כך 

אדם צריך לשנוא ולאהוב בבת אחת 

באותן עיניים לבכות ובאותן עיניים לצחוק 

A man doesn't have time in his life 

to have time for everything. 

He doesn't have seasons enough to have 

a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes 

was wrong about that. 

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, 

to laugh and cry with the same eyes.

As we enter this season of joy, let’s use the Slotky family and Yehuda Amichai as our teachers. We should have the strength to both laugh and cry, to mourn and dance, to hate and love. And even to live in both despair and hope. 

Let us understand and model for our children, our students, and ourselves that, as difficult as it may be, part of the human condition is to hold on with passion to opposite emotions and do so on this chag with both broken and full hearts.