“Never in his life had occasion to ask himself, “Why are things the way they are?” Why should he bother, when the way they were was always perfect? Why are things the way they are? The question to which there is no answer, and up till then he was so blessed he didn’t even know the question existed.”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral
Sukkot—and the Days of Awe—are built in opportunities for us to pause for deep reflection on how things are, how things were and how we might look toward what could be. This is a time, both within the Jewish world and the secular world, ripe for reimagining the status quo. Sukkot, in this way, is a celebration of the temporary nature of all things; a moment to celebrate impermanence and the fact that there is a season to build up and a season to tear down.
This week, we depart from our regularly scheduled parshiot for a special Sukkot Parasha from the end of Parasha Ki Tisa in the book of Exodus. At the very beginning of this section of scripture, God says,
“פְּסׇל־לְךָ שְׁנֵי־לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים כָּרִאשֹׁנִים.”
“Carve two tablets of stone like the first.”
The use of the word like, which is denoted with a simple “khaf”, is particularly interesting in that there is the acknowledgment that, even though the words on the tablets will be the same, there is something new about the tablets. They cannot be the same because the context is not the same. There is no new normal, there is no return to what was, but there is a new, fresh slate upon which we will write our Torah.
Rabbi Brett Weisman