(Deuteronomy 16)The materials used to cover the booth
(Translated from Chinese to English assisted with ChatGPT)
The progress of this week’s Torah reading is not in the usual order because it is during the Feast of Tabernacles, which lasts for about a week. On Saturday, October 7, 2023, is the solemn assembly of the eighth day (Leviticus 23:36), and the Torah reading is from Deuteronomy 14:22 to 16:17, which includes a passage related to the Feast of Tabernacles: (Deuteronomy 16:13) “You shall keep the Feast of Booths for seven days when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and winepress.” Jewish tradition derives this from here [Sukkah 11a, 12a https://www.sefaria.org/Sukkah.11a.11?lang=bi
, https://www.sefaria.org/Sukkah.12a.2?lang=bi
]: for constructing booths during the Feast of Tabernacles, the roof must be covered with cut vegetation to be considered valid. Jewish texts can be quite challenging to understand. My personal understanding is as follows: Why does this verse (Deuteronomy 16:13) mention the gathering of grain and wine? At first glance, it is, of course, to emphasize that the Feast of Tabernacles should be during the harvest season (autumn). However, Leviticus 23:39 has already mentioned, ‘When you have gathered in the produce of the land,’ starting from the fifteenth day of the seventh month… (in accordance with biblical calendar, this is the autumn season). So, since we believe that the words in the scripture are never redundant, the apparent ‘repetition’ in Deuteronomy 16:13 should be teaching something new. Jewish people believe that Deuteronomy 16:13 mentioning ‘the produce of the threshing floor and winepress’ is teaching what materials should be used to cover the booth. Just as ‘the produce of the threshing floor and winepress’ comes from plants that have grown in the field and are then harvested, the roof of the booth for the Feast of Tabernacles must also be covered with vegetation that has grown in the field and been cut down.
Now, let me share a story about building a booth that relates to the materials needed for the roof. The original version of this article was published in the Grace Quarterly.
In 2010, we bought a house, and for the first time, we could celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in our yard. However, I went to China and stayed in an apartment building on a campus. I had no choice but to build a booth on the balcony. The roof of the booth had to be made of plants, but I didn’t want to randomly pick branches from public trees to observe the biblical Feast of Tabernacles, so I was worried about what to do. Then, a few days before the Feast of Tabernacles began, a storm came, and it blew down many branches. I picked them up and used them to build that year’s booth. I also added some pine branches discarded by workers. Image one (sukkah2010.jpg) is the booth from 2010, which was built on the balcony, so one could only sit inside. This is the view of the sky from inside, where you can see the pine branches and leaves used, as well as the branches and leaves from the storm (perhaps from poplar trees?).
Later, I realized that there wasn’t much rainfall in the northern region. After the Feast of Tabernacles that year, there was almost no rain for two or three months, until it snowed in December.
Two years later, in 2012, I went to China again and stayed in the same apartment. This time, I worried again: Would the Creator send another storm to blow down branches for us to use in building the booth? The Feast of Tabernacles that year began on a Sunday when it was a full moon. On Thursday night, my whole family went to a supermarket near the school to buy things for the Sabbath. I estimated that we would only have time to build the booth on Friday morning. I had already bought bamboo poles to use as the frame, but I still didn’t have branches and leaves to cover it. I searched for a long time at the place where workers had previously placed trimmed pine branches, but I only found a few withered vines.
The weather forecast had predicted thunderstorms for those days, but there had been no rain until Thursday night. To our surprise, there was a full moon in the sky on Thursday night, and there was no sign of rain. I said to my wife that we probably wouldn’t get enough branches from another storm this year. Should I have stayed in the United States and fulfilled my responsibility to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles there? (In the United States, you can buy qualified bamboo mats for booth roofs.)
As we were checking out at the supermarket, suddenly we heard thunder outside. Someone said it was going to rain. We didn’t have umbrellas, so we quickly prepared to run back. When we looked outside, there was no rain, but it was windy. Under the streetlights, I saw a pile of leaves on the sidewalk from a distance. I excitedly said to my wife that it must be branches that G-d had prepared for us to build the booth! As we got closer, we saw a straight branch, taller than a person, with many leaves and twigs, blown down and lying on the ground, looking like a whole small tree. I carried it on my shoulder and brought it back. My wife, with our child and the groceries we had purchased, followed me, singing praises to G-d. The thunder and lightning grew more and more intense, but my wife believed that the rain would only come after we returned home. And indeed, that was the case. The branch was quite long, and when we went upstairs, through the hallways and corners, the soft branches and leaves in front had to be bent to pass through. It would have been difficult if it had been any longer. We tore off the smaller branches on top and built the booth roof on Friday during the day, adding some other branches and leaves we had collected after the rain. We kept the remaining main branch for a long time and took a picture of it, as shown in image two (branch2012.jpg). This is the main branch of the tree that was blown down in the storm in 2012.
I learned a lesson: People who have experienced miracles sometimes doubt whether the previous one was a coincidence. Will it be so coincidental again this time? Although people should do their part and not always rely on miracles, the Creator loved us in the past, and He still loves us now. Just as He was willing to help us with miracles before, He is still worthy of our complete trust. As Numbers 11:23 says, “Has the Lord’s hand become short?”