The Essence of Sukkot

Writer's note:

Dear Readers,

Many years ago, I read a story line not unlike the one that follows: that of a poor Jew who learns the lesson of Sukkot through his travails and devotion. Therefore, while I do not claim the story line as mine, the body of the tale, its characters and content, I did author.

Alan D. Busch
The day of Erev Sukkot, 2007

Long ago-when our grandparents' grandparents lived in tiny villages-was there one called "Bissele." Therein lived a certain simple Jew, a "shlepper" by trade, a pious but unlearned man who did as best he could with what little he had.

For the better part of the preceding winter, spring and summer, he had worked doggedly, scrimped and saved enough money with which to purchase a fine lulav and esrog.

His efforts were blessed.

A day or two before the Eve of Sukkot, he, his one and only horse and cart set out for the provincial marketplace in which- among the myriads of general merchandise available-beautiful lulavim and esrogim could be had.

It was while traveling on a treacherously pitted and hazardous dirt road that the simple Jew's horse lost its footing by the edge of a precipice, fell and broke two of its four legs.

Reb Schmeryl, whom bad luck seemed to pursue, was simply beside himself. Overwrought
by the accident that had befallen his faithful, hard-working companion, Reb Schmeryl-having no other choice- acceded to the offer of a passing peasant fellow to put his horse out of its misery.

Once one horse dispatched, another's necessity arose. Reb Schmeryl needed another horse in any event and, as it happened, said peasant, one Stavich, was more than willing and able to supply.

And the price, what of that?

Well, when the painful transaction was concluded, Reb Schmeryl retained but one-quarter of what he had so industriously squirreled away.

Down but not out, he, his newly acquired four-legged companion and cart proceeded forthwith to the provincial seat but-now with so little money left, how would he be able to purchase a beautiful set of the "arba minim," the four species?

Only hours before the eve of the chag, as merchants were closing their shutters, in schlepped Reb Schmeryl looking as worn and shriveled as the esrog he'd soon purchase.

Alas, one such storekeeper, a dealer of religious ritual objects, took pity on Reb Schmeryl and let him in though he had already closed.

"Sholem aleichem, Reb ... Reb ...?" his voice trailing off inquiringly.

"Schmeryl. Aleichem shalom, Reb ... ?"

"Geltmacher," responded the merchant, his chest slightly but certainly immodestly

puffed out.

"Reb Geltmacher, I have but these few coins with which to buy the four species," he

said, hoping perhaps that Reb Geltmacher might be a tzaddik-first impressions

aside.

"Over here Reb Schmeryl,look here," he motioned to his weary customer.

Inside the "discarded" bin Reb Geltmacher had placed some of the sorriest excuses for lulavim and esrogim anyone had ever seen. Reb Schmeryl examined a set carefully with an eye as discriminating as that of a jeweler. The lulav was bent and splintered, its willow leaves-many having already fallen off. Never mind that Hoshana Rabba was a good week away! And the esrog wasn't much prettier either. A snapped off stem was all that remained of its pittum.

"This," thought Reb Schmeryl, "is a pri etz hadar?" overtaken momentarily by his own sarcasm.

Reb Geltmacher, impassive and becoming visibly anxious, began fidgeting lest he be
late for erev yontif.

"This will have to do," intoned Reb Schmeryl choosing the "best" of the
worst.

Too late to head home by horse and cart, Schmeryl looked tired, forlorn and quite
hungry.

"Have you a place for yontif?" asked Reb Geltmacher.

"No ... regrettably not," responded a very beaten down Schmeryl.

"Well, the public inn is around the corner. With what you have left, you can afford

two nights," Geltmacher informed Schmeryl. "Oh, and the shul is just opposite the

inn."

Paying Reb Geltmacher and wishing him a "gut Yontif," off he trod to the inn.

Once signed in, Reb Schmeryl fell asleep, missing erev yontif.

Next morning, he arose and with arba minim in hand, hastened off to shul. Taking a seat as far to the back of the shul as he could, Reb Schmeryl, feeling ashamed, wondered what he would do come time for hakafos.

Then a hush! Every last soul arose when the Rav entered, carrying ... well-you can imagine-the finest arba minim Reb Geltmacher had had to offer. Something though was amiss. The Rav did not know what it was at first. Stepping back from his shtender, his prayerful focus interrupted, he began to search, winding his way through the aisles until finally ... there was but one seat left, the very last one.

"Reb ... Reb ...?

"Schmeryl, Schmeryl, Rebbe," rose Reb Schmeryl, managing to respond, albeit

nervously.

"Reb Schmeryl, may I have the honor of using your arba minim with which to bentch

lulav and carry during hakafos, please?. Here you take mine."

Stunned but agreeable, Reb Schmeryl's lips turned up into a faint smile; the Rav's
wisdom, for which he was particularly renowned, demonstrated itself once again incomparable, and Reb Geltmacher, well ... Reb Geltmacher was nonplussed, his chest deflated, his eyebrows knitted in consternation.

Link to Aish.com

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/odysseys/Stepping_into_the_Sukkah.asp

Dear Readers,

Please copy and paste this link to read my newly published article in Aish.com.

Thank you,

Alan

"What are you doing?" Kallah grogily asked me at 4:35 a.m..

"Getting dressed for minyan at 5:00. Erev Rosh Ha Shanah Slichos begin in a few minutes and are rather lengthy."

She turned over in a moment of sleepy indifference as if to say:

"Given your year, you do have much to be penitential about!"

So ... I gathered my trusty bicycle, tucked my right pants cuff in my sock and raced off to shul just a few minutes before 5:00. My efficiency paid off because I was able to get in a few laps around the shul parking lot before joining the Slichos minyan. Nothing like a little sweat before standing before the Holy One, Blessed be He!

Came back from shul around 7:30 and began pulling all the last minute strings together for tonight, the evening that heralds the beginning of 5768. I've always`liked that term "heralds" but I never have heard those "much heralded" trumpets blow as they're supposed to when one says "heralds". Guess I have to be content with the blowing of the Shofar, 100 "kolos" (blasts) on each of the two days of yontiff.

It's just me and Kallah for dinner tonight though I will enjoy the company of my Dad
and younger son Zac tonight together with me at shul although Zac will drive his Grandpa home afterward and return himself to his new digs but not first without a take-home yontiff meal prepared by yours truly. Sorry but given my family's observance predelictions, it's the best I can do, but I make no apologies as we are who we are.

In these few thoughtful moments before I have to check the progress of the turkey breast yet again, I am reminded of a little speech I gave the morning of Zac's bar mitzvah ocncerning the legendary Rabbi of Nemirov who absented himself from Slichos because he was out performing acts of chesed in the wee hours of the morning, such as preparing some kindling for a widow's fireplace as there was no one else to do it.

Yes, of course, he disguised himself as a peasant woodchopper. In this way, he not only accomplished some much needed work but prepared the way for his own tshuva as well. The common folks of his town speculated as to his whereabouts but one thing was for certain he was not at his shtender in the beis medrash, but off in the heavens, folks eagerly said, chatting as it were with The One Above.

There was a skeptical fellow in town as it happened, a "pisher" one might say, who was determined to expose the Rabbi of Nemirov for the fraud that he, the young fellow, was certain that he was ... so he slipped into his house late one night, crawled under the saint's bed and awaited his awakening. And as you might imagine, the saintly Rav awoke, dressed himself as a woodcutter and off went he to prepare the kindling for the aged widow's fire.

The young skeptic followed him on tippy toes and was flabberghasted that indeed the Rav was performing such seemingly menial tasks but understand he did for the next day in the town square he overheard local shul folks blathering on endlessly, as was their custom, about the absence of the much loved Rav.

"He's in shamayim at the right hand of the Aibishter!" said the most convinced and articulate of the small assembly gathered.

The others nodded in collective accord, but the one-time cynic who had witnessed the good deeds of the Saint, having overheard the accolades of the crowd,
whispered to himself: "And even higher!"

May we ascend to ever greater heights in our journey of life but without forgetting to first smell the coffee and the roses, appreciate a butterfly or, if need be, chop kindling for the widow's fire.

Alan Busch

4:14 pm

erev RH.

Kallah Has Come Home

Kallah Has Come Home ...

I needed some time

while she was gone before

I understood.

Suffering tortuous days, enduring sleepless nights.

That a woman loves her husband

by reconciling her higher sense with ...

a man's baser nature.

I had to discover ...

the key to her love

was to search out her soul.

That when she loves you,

it is first with her mind and ...

only after with her body.

If and when a man

understands this ...

has he finally grown up.

Alan D. Busch

The Miracle of Kimberly

Dear Readers,

This section is excerpted from In Memory of Ben.


Why was Kimberly saved? I don’t have an answer anymore

now than I did before when I asked why Ben was not

saved. It was unanswerable then as it remains now.

The following Friday, I invited Kimmy along with her boyfriend

for dinner Erev Shabbat. Zac was there too as was my

fiancé. The table, beautifully set, awaited us: its candles

aglow. It is my custom to light a ner nechuma for my son Ben

every Friday night before Shabbos begins … sort of bridging

the distance between us. We sat down.

“Kimuschkele,” my voice cracking as I try to get the words out

of a short speech.

“Yes BBDO,” she responded half grinningly, half tearfully.
(BBDO=Big Bad Daddyo)

“This Shabbat is extra special,” I said, addressing everyone but looking at my daughter.

“We say ‘Hodu la Adoshem ki tov, ki le’olam chasdo’ because

of all nights, I am especially thankful tonight to have you by

my side.” Lifting the kiddush cup, a slight tremor animated

my right hand. I let a moment pass, not a peep was uttered.

Ben’s lamp seemed to flicker more brightly, illuminating the

serpentine path of a single drop of wine running down my

hand.

“Vayahe erev, vayahe voker,” I sanctified the wine.


Alan D. Busch

Questions

Remember this tale about which you'll hear

of fighting Jews who fell without fear,

who chose to die as men and not as cattle,

but fate had determined that they first do battle

with the Hun at whom they did courageously fling

all of the might of young David's sling.

Their foe, a Goliath, of thousands' times size

from whom they refused to submit to the lies:

that they were weak and unworthy, unable to rise,

though blinded by hate, they aimed straight for his eyes.

Never before had there been seen such daring

from young women and men all of whom caring

for the dignity of those for whom they fought,

such were the lessons that history had taught ...

that the Jew stood alone, friendless, against foe,

counting his days, tormented by woe.

His task ... to prove that though troubled by pain,

the courage of Masada had not been in vain.

For three months, the struggle did not cease,

neither of its sides desiring peace.

For that meant 'surrender', an unthinkable word,

from the sewers of Warsaw could there still be heard:

the cries, the anguish, the torture within

ferreting out their captives the Nazis whose grin

was evidence they had been acting with glee

when stifling the attempt of people to be free.

Cords of 'log-bodies', stacked just the same,

secular and religious none to blame.

For there was NO difference before the Hun,

the Jews for him were decidedly ONE!

Whether armed or with prayer, they met their end,

futile struggle, Kiddush HaShem.

Our duty to those whose fate we survived

is in working to keep their memory alive.

I ask ... why a people whose destiny has been

to enlighten a world through darkness and din,

whose lives are as many as they have been few,

why so despised has been the Jew?

For what 'good' reason is he chosen to die?

Why gone unnoticed the tear in his eye?

Has he not suffered so while the world stands by,

Why have we not ever heeded his cry?

Is there really a difference that makes him seem strange,

as if the same blood did not course through his veins?

Does he not laugh, cry, and feel just as you?

How threatens he when he numbers so few?

Threatened with death should he adhere to his ways,

terrorized by chimneys above which rose haze,

searchingly hopeful ... in whose starry gaze

are reflected the faggots whose fires roar ablaze.

Why did none act to stop it once knowrn?

Enough indifference haven't we sown?

Praying to the heavens as they did every day,

that soon they'd see planes flying their way,

so bombardment, please god, should take us

ere the chambers would

but, the Allies denied they could destroy the rails

leading straight into Hell,

from which precious few reemerged to tell

of the horrors awaiting them, so hard to believe,

that neither kindness nor life did the arrivals receive.

The children, too, thrust into the pit,

enraged blood lust, into its infernal fit

that even the babes whose potential so great

should have felt the steel of this magnificent hate,

whose cries were heard, but listened to none,

whose heads fell limp with the snap of a gun,

whose parents, god forbid! they saw as naked as they,

for it was like this ...that they suffered that day.

There are those who challenge what we have to say,

"Does such a retelling remains relevent today?"

"That, somehow, It's past, gone. Let it be!"

"Why do you make us suffer to see:

the killings, the children, the mountains of bone,

the chambers transformed so many to stone!

who dropped like logs when the doors were thrown wide,

there simply had been ... no place to hide,

mothers whose skirts offered refuge at least

little ones uncovered ...thrown into the fiery feast.

"Of what use" it was queried,

"could they possibly be"

in a stench wherein no one was happy or free?"

Ne'er a glimmer of hope would the murderers give

to those whose sole wish ... was only to live.

Mothers from children, families asunder,

might others have withstood this fury and thunder?

Slave labor was needed to further the 'cause',

to build V-2 rockets, to sharpen the claws.

For such, 'noble' men, doctors by fame

were employed to brutalize, murder, and maim

so that 'Science' could learn when life was so cheap,

discarded mankind onto the heap.

'Great' governments had met in order to be

as pious as possible, but deaf to the plea ...

of the wandering Jew whose torment to see

how unwelcome he waS in the 'Land of the Free'.

The ship onto which so many had stormed

could not find refuge for opinion had formed

that the Jew was expendable, a nuisance, a thorn

upon whom fate had abandoned its contemptuous scorn.

They made it to America these "tired and poor"

to discover Liberty's spark shone little more

that, for them, there was not room enough to remain,

what hopes they had cherished were all now in vain!

Dejectedly they limped back to the place

which had expelled them at first for the same lack of space.

Stripped naked and paraded for the world to see

what sickness had afflicted modern Germany?

Once active and vigorous this citizenry now wandering about quite aimlessly.

It didn't take long for the nazis to see

that the world cared less for these Jews to be free.

A 'final solution' would quicken the pace

that guarenteed mastery to the 'Aryan' race.

No longer at issue either sufferance or claim,

onto Jewry was placed the burden and blame.

To repair the world, there first must needs be

a point at which we accept responsibility

for right against wrong, fiction from fact,

a basis upon which we can responsibly act,

but why even bother...

so distant from then,

what more do we gain, what message we send?

For the sake of' the children,

if not for our own ...

and for them whose lives ...

we

might

otherwise

have

known.

Alan D. Busch

revised 2007