The Sukkot Fantasy Draft: Who Makes Your Team?

The 7 Traditional Sukkot Guests (Ushpizin)

Chag Sameach Sukkot! 

What's Sukkot?

Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is named after the booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) in which Jews are supposed to dwell during this week-long celebration. According to rabbinic tradition, these flimsy sukkot represent the huts in which the Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after escaping from slavery in Egypt. The festival of Sukkot is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (chaggim or regalim) of the Jewish year.

Who are the Ushpizn?

A custom originating with Lurianic Kabbalah is to recite the ushpizin prayer to "invite" one of seven "exalted guests" into the sukkah.These ushpizin (Aramaic אושפיזין 'guests'), represent the seven shepherds of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David. According to tradition, each night a different guest enters the sukkah followed by the other six. Each of the ushpizin has a unique lesson which teaches the parallels of the spiritual focus of the day on which they visit.

My Ushpizin -- 7 Notable Jews and My #1 Question for Each

I've never been quite satisfied with the classic, all-male, all-biblical ushpizin guest list. Haven't we dissected their lessons enough the rest of the year? 

So this year, I'm taking a cue from my Fantasy Football-obsessed friends and drafting my own Ushpizin Team. Here are my Top 7 picks and one question I'd ask of each.

1. Anne Frank -- I'm obsessed with the line that is most often quoted from your diary, which reads: "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." You wrote this before your family was found, taken to a concentration camp, and killed. Do you still believe in the inherent goodness of people?
2. Betty Friedan -- Feminist and anti-feminist rhetoric is raging again in America in 2015. We're still fighting for a woman's right to control her health and her body. What's your advice for today's young feminist? 
3. Emma Goldman -- One of your quotes about anarchy was used as the inspiration for one of my favorite TV shows, Sons of Anarchy. Go anywhere you want with that, Emma.
4. The Marx brothers and Karl Marx -- No questions. I just want to see them all in a sukkah together. 
5. Carl Sagan -- Being Jewish and an atheist. Discuss.
6. Eli Wiesel -- Have I been reading you wrong all these years? When you said God died on the hangman's noose, did you mean a loss of faith, or a standard Jewish argument with God?
7. Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- You're pretty old. Born in 1933. It's unusual for a woman your age to have gone to college and law school when you did. I what ways did your Judaism influence those choices, and did your family's Judaism encourage their support of your efforts?

Your Turn. Who's Your #1 Draft Pick. What's Your Question?

Famous Last Words: Parsha Vezos Haberakah

My son Ben and I had a conversation about famous last words. He'd stumbled upon an Internet list of famous people and their last words before dying. (Here are links to a couple: BrainCandy and Mental Floss)

Ben's astute observation is that everyone has last words, but most of us don't get to choose them. "Don't forget the chicken!" could be the last thing you ever say to someone.

Or, worse, something you said in anger.

I'm always suspicious of these "famous last words". You can't trust the account of the person who said it, because they're dead, and if I were the last person to witness a great man's moment (George Washington, perhaps) I'd be very careful about what I reported.

Washington's last words were (supposedly): "I die hard but am not afraid to go."~~ George Washington, US President, d. December 14, 1799

Wow. What an ending. Well done, Mr. President.

One can't help but wonder, if his last words had been, "The horse farts at midnight!" would we know? If Martha Washington and the doctor and a few servants were in the room when he died, could they have conspired to replace, "The horse farts at midnight" with "I die hard but am not afraid to go"? The second is so much more dignified, but much less likely. (Washington died after his 'doctors' drained half his blood and performed an emergency tracheotomy. It's gruesome, and I doubt he was coherent.)

Moses and God Speak Last Words

At Simchat Torah, which is coming up October 4/5, we read the final chapter of the Torah, Parsha Vezos Haberakah, in which Moses gives his final blessing to the Israelites and, rather unceremoniously, goes off and dies. 

God accompanies Moses up to the top Mount Nebo and says:

(http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html)

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Ouch. I would't be surprised if Moses's actual final words were, "Really, God? Really?"

Moses could have gone down that same road with the Israelites, reminding them of their worst behavior in the desert as a final twist of the knife on the way out, but he didn't. He blessed them and promised them victory in the upcoming war to conquer The Promised Land. A screenwriter couldn't do better. Moses took the high road. 

(Oh, the irony of using Mel Gibson here, right?)

So few of us will have the chance to plan our last words. All we can hope for is that all of our words are suitable to be the ones we're remembered by.

Now, let's finish up this Torah, roll it back to the start and create it all over again.
Don't forget the chicken!