If you’re putting up a sukkah this year – or perhaps visiting a friend’s – be prepared to be joined by some other esteemed guests: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and King David. Or maybe it’s the dynasty of seven chassidic masters. Or perhaps some of the remarkable women from Jewish history. Getting a bit crowded? There’s always room for one more tzadik (righteous person) in your sukkah. Today, a look at the welcoming tradition of ushpizin.
The mystical book, the Zohar, is the source of ushpizin (“guests” in Aramaic.) It explains that “when a person sits in his sukkah the Shchinah (God’s Divine Presence) spreads its wings over it from above, and then Abraham together with the other five tzadikim and King David dwell together with him.” Abraham is the guest on the first day, Isaac on the second, and so on.
“Each of these ancient personalities represented a particular spiritual blessing, characteristic, or mystical aspect of God (sefirah). These figures were imagined to dine with their hosts, bringing their unique qualities into the sacred space of the sukkah.”
• Abraham represents love and kindness
• Isaac – restraint and personal strength
• Jacob – beauty and truth
• Moses – eternality and dominance through Torah
• Aaron – empathy and receptivity to divine splendour
• Joseph – holiness and the spiritual foundation
• David – the establishment of the kingdom of Heaven on Earth
Merely dining with a heavenly guest is not good enough. The 19th-century Rebbe of Sandz warned that these holy visitors would undoubtedly refuse to dwell in a sukkah where the poor were not also welcome. He explained: “It is incumbent upon everyone to adorn the sukkah, which I have not done properly. Is there any more beautiful ornament for the sukkah than the distribution of charity to those who do not have the means to be glad in the ‘Season of Our Rejoicing?’”
Maimonides could not have been more blunt in his Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Festivals 6:18): “When one eats and drinks, one must also feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow and other unfortunate paupers. But one who locks the doors of his courtyard, and eats and drinks with his children and wife but does not feed the poor and the embittered soul – this is not the joy of a mitzvah, but the joy of his belly…”
In addition to the traditional ushpizin, several other variations have ushered in more modern guests. For example, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950) spoke of seven “Chassidic ushpizin” including the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid (Rabbi DovBer of Mezeritch), and the first five rebbes of Chabad.
Even more recently, women guests have also been welcomed into the sukkah. The “ushpizot Guide” created by the Ma’yan Jewish Women’s Project quotes a medieval kabbalist who said that along with the seven male guests, we should usher in the seven prophetesses listed in the Talmud: Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Avigail, Huldah and Esther. The site has brief biographies of these personalities as well as recommended activities for an ushpizot celebration.
Who would be on your top seven invite list? Arie Hasit would include well known and lesser known personalities including philosopher Martin Buber; Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, two figures who had significant influences on modern Jewish music and “Rebecca Gratz, a native of Philadelphia, like myself. Gratz established a Sunday Hebrew school and a college to train Jewish educators.” And of course, Arie’s family, living relatives, deceased grandparents.
“The combination of Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions in my family, the love for Israel and the love for Judaism are perhaps the most important principles guiding my observance of this and all other holidays and aspects of Jewish life.”
Unless you have a great imagination, it can be a challenge believing these great people really are in your midst. Barbara Weill has a suggestion: hold a press conference. In one of her role-playing games, you invite several friends to your sukkah and have each adopt the identity of one of the traditional ushpizin. Each real-life “ushpiziz” is asked “questions concerning his life as related in the Bible. For example, one might ask Abraham, ‘How could you agree to offer up your son Isaac as a sacrifice?’” Players are scored for the quality of their questions and responses.
Finally, a story of a very personal ushpizin. Several years ago, Timora “Timmi” Avitzour died of leukemia at the age of 18. Her mother’s blog has memoirs about her daughter’s six-year struggle and its aftermath.
She tells of sitting in the sukkah almost five years after Timmi’s death when another of her daughters “surprised us by saying with a smile, ‘Maybe tomorrow Timmi will come and be our guest in the sukkah. It will be her birthday, after all.’ … I think that at that moment all of us at the table felt bound to each other in a mixture of contradictory feelings – a warm happiness at our memories of Timmi, a deep sadness that she will never again sing with us, and an intense yearning for the possibility that, in honour of her birthday, she might actually make this Sukkot ‘our time of joy’ by joining the Patriarch Isaac the next evening as one of the ushpizin at our table.
“If only.”