Friday, March 29, 2024 -
Print Edition

Sukkot: throwing away the winning lottery ticket

Parable #1: Is this guy nuts? He buys a lottery ticket. In fact, he has been buying lottery tickets for decades. Of course, he has never won. But this time, he compares his ticket with the winning numbers. He is the winner! This is Powerball. The jackpot is $220 million! So what does this guy do? He tears up the winning ticket and throws it away.

This is a parable. What is the message? To clarify, here are six more parables, all with the same message. Hint: If you prayed on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, you’ve got it or glimpsed it.

Parable #2: A baseball team struggles all season long for first place, always changing places with the same team. Finally, on the last day of the season, the two teams end in a tie. The team that wins the tiebreaking game then proceeds to win the pennant, and is now headed for the World Series. A most unusual team meeting takes place, however. The team members agree that, at a minimum, they are already the best team in baseball, minus the winner of the other pennant race. Maximally, they are the best team in baseball. Why chance their status? Team members, arguing that no one could ever say that they lost the Series, decide to forfeit it. They’ll be known as pennant winners. That’s enough.

Parable #3: You know how kids are. Ask them what they want to be when they grow up and you get the strangest answers. Once in a while, however, a child actually knows what he wants to be and sticks to it. Take the case of the child who, at age seven, says he wants to be a doctor. No one pays him much attention. Then, at age 10, he says the same thing. As he enters high school, he takes every biology and chemistry course that is offered, and does well. In college he becomes pre-med and does very well. He gets into the best medical schools and ends up graduating first in his class. The day after graduation, he sees a classified advertisement seeking garbage truck drivers. He says: “I think I’ll take this job. Looks interesting.” He throws away his medical career to become a garbage truck driver.

Parable #4: Most everyone has in mind a “dream house.” Imagine a young husband and wife who struggle for years, then actually get to build their dream house. They have visited the Parade of Homes for years and taken the best idea that each house has to offer — the living room from this house, the kitchen from that one — and throw in many of their own ideas, too. They spend endless hours with the architects and construction crew. Finally, the house is ready! Standing on the threshold of their dream house, the husband and wife look at each other and say, as if reading each other’s mind: “Let’s move to a trailer park instead.” And they do. The dream house stands empty, uninhabited, to this day.

Parable #5: A Bar Mitzvah boy is really talented. He can deliver a speech in English, a discourse in Hebrew; he can daven the entire service from beginning to end and read the entire Torah portion. He’s got everything. Finally, the big day arrives. The Bar Mitzvah boy is not nervous. Suddenly, he announces, “I’ll skip everything I’ve prepared and make do with the bare-minimum one-line blessing over the Torah.” That takes about 30 seconds. It’s not that he rebelled. He shows up the next Sunday to put on his tefilin and observes all the commandments. He’s just skipping the Bar Mitzvah he’s prepared a couple of years for. All the preparations (and expected “Mazel tovs” and oohs and ahs), down the tubes.

Parable #6: We all know how difficult it is to win a US presidential race, and how rare it is for a Jewish American to be nominated. Suppose that in 2000 Joe Lieberman had become vice-president, and then delivered this victory speech: “It’s been an unparalleled honor as a Jew to be elected to the second highest office in the land. Actually, the honor is all I wanted. I now announce that before inauguration day, I intend to resign my place on the Democratic ticket and give President-elect Gore the opportunity to name someone else. Again, to all Americans, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the honor you have uniquely given me.”

Parable #7: In Denver, one can “pick up” a lulav and etrog, prepared, all ready to go. In Jerusalem, however, hundreds of vendors line designated streets, with almost no lulavs or etrogs sorted by quality. To find a high quality etrog is almost like finding a needle in a haystack. Same for the lulav. One has to search through tens or even hundreds. Then, the custom is to show these ritual items to a rabbinic specialist for “quality control”; usually, there’s a long line outside his door. The whole process can take hours or even a few days. Picture someone who has gone through the painstaking process and is ready to buy. Suddenly, he spies a scrawny etrog, a dehydrated lulav and some unattractive branches. He puts aside the high quality items, points to the bottom-of-the-barrel items and says, “I’ll take those.”

What is the message? To what may the person who throws away the winning lottery ticket — his medical career, his dream house, his political career, his Bar Mitzvah, his lovely lulav — be compared?

To a person who observes Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but  skips Sukkot.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the work; Sukkot is the reward.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the path to victory; Sukkot is the victory itself.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the dream; Sukkot is the realization.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the preparation; Sukkot is the celebration.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the prayer; Sukkot is the answer to the prayer. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the hope for Divine presence, mercy and a beautiful destiny; Sukkot is the deliverance of Divine presence, mercy and destiny.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the pursuit; Sukkot is the goal.

Turn in your winning lottery ticket! Happy Sukkot!

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg may be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News



Avatar photo

IJN Executive Editor | [email protected]


Leave a Reply