The subject matter of chapter 29 turns to the major Jewish festivals. Abravanel takes a deep dive into
them. For our purposes here, we will focus on his treatment of the Feast of Booths, also known as the
Feast of Tabernacles. To qualify, this blog only comprises one aspect of Abravanel’s study of this feast, which is called Sukkot in Hebrew.
“And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month there is a holy
convocation for you. You shall not do any work activity. You shall
celebrate a festival to God for seven days.”
For starters, the feast of booths is also called the festival of harvest, referring to the agricultural period
corresponding to the in-gathering of a farmer’s produce. For Abravanel, allusion is made to man’s
finality and mortality, his “in-gathering” or demise. What are the passages of man’s life, he asks?
From birth until thirteen, man is a youth. Youth’s hallmark is underdeveloped reasoning, something
observed by the Jewish sages. To paraphrase them, a man’s evil inclination precedes his mature, better
judgement by thirteen years. Put differently, a man’s impetuosity has a significant head-start on his cool,
rational thinking—a considerable thirteen-year head-start. Hence, on the first day of the feast of
booths, thirteen bulls are offered in the Temple.
On day seven of the festival, seven bulls are sacrificed. Throughout the seven-day festival, seventy bulls
are offered. This refers to man’s life, spanning seven decades. Man expects to be productive and fruitful
for the duration of those years. In Hebrew, the terms “productive” or “fruitful” share its cognate with
the Hebrew word for bull.
Here is another chilling observation. Following bulls brought to the altar were two rams. This takes into
account man’s youthful years. At that juncture, he teems with physical and spiritual prowess—one ram
attesting to his brawn, the other to his idealistic bent. Sheep followed. Continuing with the allusion to
man’s passages, Abravanel puts forth that the rams and sheep hint at extra years sometimes allotted to
man. In rare cases, a man may reach ninety, and some hit one hundred. Seventy to one hundred pretty
much cover the vast majority of man’s outlier life expectancy.
Daily, fourteen sheep were sacrificed on the feast of tabernacles. They encompass this theme. How?
When we multiply fourteen by seven, we arrive at ninety-eight. Rounding off, we reach the outer limits
of one hundred spoken of earlier. Quality of life for men that old is seriously impaired. He is weak, sickly,
and pain-ridden. In short, he cannot put up much of a fight and succumbs to his fate.
Indeed, for Abravanel, the Feast of Tabernacles, with its existential message rings loudly of the
ephemeral; it shakes man up to contemplate death which awaits. Productive years can run seven
decades, reminiscent of the holiday’s seven days. Until seventy, man can do. He can accomplish. Again,
seventy fruitful years are represented by the seventy bulls. Mind and body are supple.
Vitality seeps out after seventy. From seventy until one hundred, down he slides. Vicissitudes knock and
knock and knock. At an advanced age, he cannot lift up his arms to fend the body blows, let alone charge
back. He is defeated. Stooped, hardly a shadow of a man remains. His prowess of yesteryear dims, an
ever-fading memory.
The animals offered on theFeast of Booths teach much about the human condition. Bulls, rams, and
sheep are metaphors for a man’s life, as discussed above. Interestingly, there are no other holiday
animal offerings, since anyone who lives past one hundred has all but forfeited his life. A bag of bare
bones, nothing meaningful hangs on.
We have shared one aspect of Abravanel’s insights, albeit a sobering one, into the Feast of Booths,
otherwise celebrated with boundless joy and blessing.
