Tis the season

As yet another festival approaches, I’m starting to feel punchdrunk. Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Succot, Simchat Torah, Shemini Atzeret. Every day feels like either a Friday – racing to get things finished before the festival starts, or a Sunday – the day after the festival’s over, wondering what balls I dropped. Metaphorical balls, that is. As far as I know no Rabbi has yet declared that the festive season is best enhanced by a bit of juggling, although I wouldn’t put it past them. My car was rear-ended last night as I was driving back from seeing Sarah Silverman, but I honestly haven’t had time to worry about it yet, what with all the other things on my plate.

 

There’s a payoff to all this, though. Not the favour of the Almighty – which, as far as one can tell from the Torah is a rather arbitrary and not necessarily purely enjoyable gift –  but the pleasant sense of being able to, for the most part, ignore Christmas. I notice that Sainsbury’s has already started stocking its Christmas selection. I saw the first TV advert of the season featuring Santa Claus a full two weeks ago. I get a warm glow every time I see these things at the thought that I don’t have to buy presents for dozens of relatives, that there’ll be no last minute dash to Brent Cross to pick up wrapping paper on December 24^th, that there’ll be no fraught Christmas dinner with family arguing or sitting in stony silence.

 

Of course, we really do just displace these paroxysms of religion elsewhere in the calendar. It makes me wonder – is there a religion anywhere that doesn’t have a time in the year when everyone becomes stressed, harried and far too busy? If not, maybe we human beings just need that extra stress every once in a while. As the old joke goes, it's lovely when it's over.

 

Comments

[Anne Clark]

Hello Naomi,

Actually the rabbis DID declare that the festive season is best enhanced by a bit of juggling and this applies in particular to Sukkot!

According to the Talmud, during the festival of Sukkot, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had the custom of holding a "Simchat Beit HaShoeva" or "Celebration of the Water-Drawing", referring to the water drawn from a spring on the outskirts of Jerusalem and used in the Temple service.

This event was characterized by extravagant celebration, including amazing juggling feats by eminent scholars such as Rabbi Shimon Ben Gamliel who used to juggle eight flaming torches!

For more information, see the Jewish Jugglers website:

www.juggler.co.il/jews

in particular the articles 'Juggling in Post-Biblical Jewish Sources' by Raphael Harris and 'Torch Song' by Eliezer Segal.