Temporary Living – Reflections at Sukkot 5780

I was listening to one of our group members check-in during this morning’s Mussar Va’ad (group) session, our first gathering since before the High Holy Days. Suddenly, I was struck by a thought: My celebration of Sukkot this year is more real than maybe ever before! One person was sharing about a recent transition she and her husband had made in their lives: moving, a new grandchild, and she was reflecting on how that had set with her during the Holy Days. It walloped me like a thunderbolt – I am like those ancestors of ours whom we are recalling during this season of temporary dwellings. We, too, are in limbo. Let me explain.

In about 5-6 weeks’ time, Laura and I will move to our new home, the one hinted at in the title of this new blog site I recently initiated. Sometime in mid-November, we will make our move to the meadow in which our new home is located. In the meantime, we have been living in our home of almost twenty years for over a month in a state in which, in so many ways, it no longer feels like our home. The last time we sold a home, over twenty years ago, “staging” was not part of the vocabulary. At least it was not a part of the vocabulary or experience we had in 1999. But now, “staging” a home, making it look like a neutral palette is a big deal. So, as summer wound down, we moved many of our possessions, and a good deal of our furniture into our garage, and even into the garage of our dear friends who live next door. Within 24 hours after our home had been “staged” we quickly came to realize, it’s not really our home anymore. That comfortable chair where I like to read – gone! The room in which we often retire in the evening to watch some TV or sit and relax before bedtime – a bedroom with no comfortable seating.  Our kitchen, our bedroom, and even our bathroom had to be largely emptied of our belongings to create that neutral palette upon which visitors might envision their belongings and their life.

So, in a very real sense, our home of twenty years has become our sukkah, our temporary dwelling, as we await the time when we will journey to our new home. It took a while to get used to it, but now, over a month later, I have settled into this new routine. I am living more simply, with less stuff around me (and in truth, since we are downsizing, with less stuff altogether, as we have given away or discarded so much.) Somewhere along the way, also spurred on my a comment from a Mussar  group member in a different community, I began to look through at this stage through the lens of the middot of the Mussar tradition:

-Anavah – Humility – What is “my space?” How much and where should my “space” be?

-Hakarat HaTov – Gratitude – how blessed have my family and I been, in so many ways, to have the life we have enjoyed during our twenty years in Newton.

Savlanut - Patience - 'Nuff said!

Histapkut – Simplicity – what, and how much do I really need to live in comfort and in a meaningful way?

Yir’ah -Awe – (and sometimes “fear”) – will our home sell, have we made our decisions carefully and responsibly, and do we appreciate the beauty of the surroundings towards which we are moving?

Da’agah – Worry – have we done our best to prepare for this transition? Have we made responsible decisions?

Nikiyut – Cleanliness – did I leave the house as I should for those coming to visit?

And the list goes on. Looking at this entire process through the lens of Mussar, as has been the case with so much in life in recent years, has been enormously helpful and calming. Indeed, Menuchat HaNefesh –Calmness and Equanimity has been important ingredients and focal points as we journey between these stages of our life, these chapters in the story we have been writing together for almost three-and-a-half decades. The Mussar lens has been grounding.

Sukkot is about the bounty amongst which we live and expressing gratitude for that bounty. It is also about the fragility of our lives. Greeting each day in this time of personal unsettledness and uncertainty, my Mussar study and practice and reinforcing what these recent years have taught me as I have turned so much of my focus and energy towards the Mussar path.

Sukkot is a time of great Simcha - joy in Jewish life. And while our personal joy is tempered by the temporary reality in which we are living, it is helping me feel even more deeply the gratitude for what is important in my life – my family, my friends, the opportunity to learn and to teach, and the simple blessing of opening my eyes each morning to a new day!

Chag Sameach!