AFTER THE HARVEST

--By Rabbi Barry Dov Katz

The late Naomi Shemer sings a song by a relatively obscure poet named Itamar Pratt. It’s called “Asif- Harvest.” The melody is haunting, the kind I tend to hum over and over again at this time of year. It is, for me, a meditation on the month of Elul and the holidays that will follow, especially Sukkot.

Here’s the poem:

Esof Et HaMaasim

Gather all of the deeds
The words and the letters
Like a cornucopia of blessing
Too heavy to bear.

Gather the blossoming
That ripened into memories
Of a summer that has passed
Before its time.

Gather all of the expressions of her beautiful face
Like the fruit and the branch
The ground is gray
Beneath the stubble
And has nothing more to give you

The stalk no longer dreams of its ear of corn
And there are no more oaths and vows, (lo nidrei v’esarei)
Only the promise of the wind
Since the rain, in its time,
Will still favor the earth at Tishrei’s end.

This poem identifies three stages in the work that I try to find time to do at this time of year and offers a way of thinking about the days from Elul to Sukkot.

First I gather: I gather words, gestures, memories of the past year. I note what I accomplished and what I did not, and whether I am pleased with my accomplishments or not. Sometimes what I have to carry is literally too heavy to bear: An unimaginable pain or a wonderful accomplishment that I cannot keep to myself and so I share it, surprised by how much it matters to me to have others know. In some years the gathering seems to go on and on and in some it ends too quickly.

This process is a good one. It is the first step in the teshuva work that Elul, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur call me to do. Gathering. High Holiday sermons usually end here. But that is what I love about Pratt’s poem. He suggests that the next step is to move from harvest to observation: Now that the harvest is over, he says, look at the field. It is different than it was. It is no longer in its summertime prime. Stalks of corn do not form walls of green alongside country roads. The flowers in my garden begin to recede, tired from a summer of abundance. The orchards are picked bare and we know that their brilliant colors are only a prelude to the barrenness of winter.

I am like those fields of stubble. If I do my Elul work correctly, I am no longer the person I was, but I am not yet someone new. I made that call to the person to person I hurt. I tried to make amends. But whatever relationship I might have with her in the future is yet to exist. As I listened to Kol Nidrei I swore to God that I would do more, learn more, give more but since then, what have I really had the chance to do about any of these things??? It is hard to look too closely at this point. It’s a messy time, full of contradiction, and often, pain.

But then, and this is where Pratt’s poem soars, comes the last stage: the promise of the wind. Imperceptible at first, it blows in the clouds that will bring in the rains that, come Spring, will produce another verdant field. It’s all about Havtachat Haruach- the promise of the wind. (Perhaps the flip side of Kohelet's hakol havel ?) That’s what Sukkot gives me-the promise, the possibility of movement. In agricultural terms it’s what keeps a farmer sane, the belief that the rains will come. For me, it’s what helps me maintain my optimism that I will make it to the next year having grown in some way.

Several years ago, I watched as friends planted bushes around the driveway of my shul. A wise woman who experienced a great deal in her life was in charge of the plantings. On the morning of the planting, I heard on the news that New York City had officially entered a period of draught. Watering lawns was now restricted to evening hours and other limitations were in effect. When I got to shul, I asked the woman in charge how she could plant at a time like this. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until the draught was lifted? Her answer: It will rain, she said. It always does. And it did. Havtachat Haruach, the promise of the wind….

While Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur get center stage, for me, Sukkot, the holiday that gives me the chance to experience the wind, is really where things come together. We miss the point of the holiday if we only focus on the abundant harvest, the lives we’ve lived up till now. Sukkot is also about the emptiness of the wind. It’s about preparing myself to do the hard work of changing myselves so that I are ready to grow.

Sukkot celebrates this empty-fullness. We leave our houses. Like camping, its fun for a few days but how long you could really live there, without needing supplies from inside your house? For a few days, that does not matter. What you feel outside, what you learn from being in the relatively empty space of the Sukkah, is hope and belief in things that cannot be seen.

Sukkot gives me the chance to make good on our promises. Half yontiff-half weekday, the intermediate days give me time to invite that friend over for a cup of coffee in my sukkah. Remember her, the one with whom I’ve made amends? We can plan on doing something together that will take us from talking about having a relationship to actually having one. I can add the learning, the davvening, the giving to my palm pilot and budget in the hope that this year they might actually get done. Sukkot gives me time for this work.

Pratt offers a way to read Sukkot back into the High Holiday narrative and into our own lives. It’s not a holiday that speaks only to Israelis who live in the same agricultural rhythm. It’s not only a holiday about the Jewish experience in history. It’s a holiday about me and my life.

I do not want to wish away these Elul days of gathering or the later ones where I look at the emptiness. They are important. But every morning and night when I read Psalm 27, I yearn for the time when I will be able to sit in God’s sukkah.

(A time when) the stalk no longer dreams of its ear of corn

And there are no more oaths and vows, (lo nidrei v’esarei)

Only the promise of the wind

Since the rain, in its time,

Will yet favor the earth at Tishrei’s end.

Rabbi Barry Dov Katz is the rabbi of the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale.