After the 7th Day of Passover: Still Caught Between Frightening Choices
Dear companions in the struggle for a world of love and justice,
For a few years now, Reb Arthur has been using the metaphor of the seventh day of Passover to describe where the human species, the governments of the United States and many other countries, including Israel and Palestine, are standing.
According to tradition, on the seventh day, the band of runaway Israelite slaves had fled Narrrowland (Egypt). They were standing on the edge of a turbulent sea. Behind them they could hear the hoof-beats of Pharoah’s horse-chariot army coming to force them back into slavery. Ahead of them was the Sea of Reeds and — beyond that — a wilderness. In short, the Unknown. They did not know what to do.
Just six months from now, this coming Sukkot will be exactly 40 years from The Shalom Center‘s first action.
Here is how we proclaimed it in 1984:
This November, the American people will once again be faced with a frightening choice: the serious possibility of Pharaoh’s Army, now called Fascism, or — who knows? Will we have the courage to step into the birthing waters of the Unknown?
That election will be six months from now and just two weeks before it, we will meet the Fall Harvest Festival of Sukkot.
In the Jewish calendar, Sukkot’s seventh day is called Hoshanah Rabbah (Tuesday evening Oct 22, through Wednesday evening, Oct 23, 2024). On that seventh day, The Shalom Center is planning our next actifest, reimagining Jewish holidays as portals for public prophetic action. Not only celebrating or mourning events of the past, but constructing and mobilizing public ritual to transform the present and future.
Transform how? We will dedicate that seventh day and all of Sukkot to Sukkat shalom! — as in the prayer, “Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomekha — Spread over all of us Your sukkah of Shalom — of Peace.” — ALL of us!
The ancient Rabbis asked why there had been 70 offerings at the Temple during Sukkot? They answered that this most expensive of the sacred offerings was a metaphor for the human species, in all its divisions, united in loving concern for each other. The 70 offerings correspond to “the 70 nations of the world,” our People ritualizing prosperous and peaceful harvests not for ourselves alone, but for all.
So could we build a Sukkat Shalom — a Sukkah of Peace — in one or 70 cities on Hoshanah Rabbah, October 23, 2024?
Could crowds come to that sukkah to embody “Sukkat Shalom”? — and collectively practice it? And while we're there, could we vigorously shake our palm fronds or beat our branches for a windfall redistribution of US military budget into American public schools, and health care, and poor counties and countries that are experiencing climate danger and disaster first and worst, and so much more?
“Hoshanah Rabbah” means “the Great Save-Us.” Who will save us now? The elections? Technology? Us? YHWH, the InterBreath of life? (Try pronouncing YHWH without any vowels — just breathe!)
There is also a more intimate aspect to Hoshanah Rabbah this year. It is Reb Arthur’s 91st birthday in the Jewish calendar. He has been attracted to this coming year, even more than 90, because 7 times 13 equals 91. So this will be the shabbat and shmitah of his bar mitzvah life.
“With a dish of relief garnished with spices of ruefulness,” says Reb Arthur, “I will be retiring as Executive Director of The Shalom Center. One of my greatest dreams in life is that The Shalom Center lives and thrives beyond me, and I’m delighted and grateful that is our plan! I am honored that Rabbi Nate DeGroot, our Associate Director, will succeed me in the years ahead. I will continue as ‘prophetic adviser’ or some similar title. And actifests will continue to become the central part of what we do to try to heal the holy world.”
We at The Shalom Center are a small body with a big vision and a sizeable and devoted email list — made up of you and many of your peers — who care deeply about these issues and are themselves activists from across the country and beyond. How can we build Sukkat Shaloms together — crossing the roiling sea which will be late October 2024 — towards the puzzling wilderness ahead — a choice for the Unknown?
What will it look like? How can you get involved? This is the work of the next six months and we’d love for you to join us.
We will be in touch via this list with regular updates and invitations. If you’re eager to get involved right away from wherever you’re based to help make this happen — or if you’re even just a little interested in imagining what getting involved might look like — please fill out this short form. And please visit and widely share theshalomcenter.org/sukkatshalom, the homepage for this actifest.
We’re excited and humbled to be in this together. With blessings of love and shalom as we keep trembling at the edge of the Unknown.
— Arthur & Nate
