{"id":708,"date":"2010-09-23T19:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/09\/happy-water-drawing-day.html"},"modified":"2010-09-23T19:32:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T19:32:00","slug":"happy-water-drawing-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/09\/happy-water-drawing-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Happy Water Drawing Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
All day today I have been intending to post something about Sukkot.\u00a0 For a holiday that usually serves as an afterthought to the high holidays, it has a very respectable history and an enormous number of past and present associations.<\/span><\/div>\n
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One that has always fascinated me is the connection between Sukkot and Chanuka.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In Temple times there was a Sukkot custom called Simchat Beit Ha-Shoeiva<\/i>, a water drawing ritual and celebration.\u00a0 On the first night of the festival an all-night gigantic Temple party would break out.\u00a0 The priests didn\u2019t like the water drawing ceremony at all as they were dominated by biblical purists (Sadducees) and the ritual was non-biblical.\u00a0 When one high priest poured the water on his feet, the Talmud reports that everyone threw their etrogs at him.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The Talmud and Mishna both report that \u201cHe who never witnessed the joy of the Simchat Beit Ha-Shoeiva<\/i> never saw joy in his life\u201d (Sukkot 51b).\u00a0 Lamps of gold were lit in the Temple and every house in Jerusalem had torches in their courtyards.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The connection to Chanuka comes when we put this together with another text that\u2019s always fascinated me.\u00a0 It can be found in the extra-biblical book 2 Maccabees, Chapter 10:<\/span><\/div>\n
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It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Kislev.\u00a0And they celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of booths, remembering how not long before, during the feast of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The twenty-fifth of Kislev is, of course, Chanuka.\u00a0 This text portrays Chanuka, the celebration of the Maccabee victory, as a postponed version of Sukkot. \u00a0Could the torches and fires that were so much a part of\u00a0Simchat Beit Ha-Shoeiva<\/i><\/span>\u00a0have been part of the inspiration for the Chanuka lights?<\/span><\/div>\n
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In modern times it\u2019s the Chasidim who carry on the partying of Simchat Beit Ha-Shoeiva<\/i>.\u00a0 In Israel it\u2019s been a time of inviting in non-Charedim to share the fun.\u00a0 This year the more radical killjoys in Meah Shearim and B\u2019nai B\u2019rak are nixing that custom.\u00a0 They\u2019ve declared that no uninvited women should even think about showing up.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Sukkot in the Temple also had a lot of sacrifices, even more than usual.\u00a0 The Torah itself says (Numbers 29) that thirteen bullocks should be sacrificed the first day, then twelve the second and so on.\u00a0 By the end of the holiday seventy bullocks had been sacrificed (the place must have smelled like the world\u2019s largest BBQ shack\u2026it would have made me queasy).\u00a0 The Rabbis identified these sacrifices on behalf of the mythical seventy nations of the world.\u00a0 To the extent that this was a sentiment of goodwill, it\u2019s worth remembering, though I for one am damn glad it isn\u2019t done any more.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Happy Sukkot!<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All day today I have been intending to post something about Sukkot.\u00a0 For a holiday that usually serves as an afterthought to the high holidays, it has a very respectable history and an enormous number of past and present associations. One that has always fascinated me is the connection between Sukkot and Chanuka. In Temple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14,22,23,41],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-history","tag-jewish-history","tag-jewish-holidays","tag-sukkot"],"yoast_head":"\nHappy Water Drawing Day<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"All day today I have been intending to post something about Sukkot.\u00a0 For a holiday that usually serves as an afterthought to the high holidays, it has a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/09\/happy-water-drawing-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy Water Drawing Day\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"All day today I have been intending to post something about Sukkot.\u00a0 For a holiday that usually serves as an afterthought to the high holidays, it has a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/09\/happy-water-drawing-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-23T19:32:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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