Don’t worry, I’m not recommending fist fights in your Sukkah (the temporary hut Jews inhabit during the festival of Sukkot). That would likely wreck the walls of your Kosher Sukkah!
I’m simply noting that one of the main themes of the Fight Club, a thought-provoking movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, is also a dominant theme of Sukkot. This theme has much to teach us about simcha (Jewish joy).
In the Fight Club, Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, drops the following truism:
Many of us spend the majority of our lives chasing money. We are brainwashed by advertisers and corporations to believe that we’ll be happy if we just get the flashy car, the big house and the shiny new gadget.
Sometimes we even convince ourselves that we constantly chase money because of our spirituality, as demonstrated by a sad story in Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ commentary on The Koren Rosh Hashana Mahzor (page 819).
Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak of Pzhysha said: If anyone is asked why he toils so hard, he replies: “To bring up my children to be good Jews.” And when the children grow up, they forget why their parents toiled, and they toil in their turn, and if you ask them why, they will say, “To bring up my children to be good Jews.” And so it goes on from generation to generation. But when will someone say, “Let me be a good Jew?”
On Sukkot, we remember how to be good Jews! We leave our comfortable homes. We leave behind our televisions, computers and fancy dining room tables. And instead we take all our meals in a fragile hut that leaves us exposed to the elements.
And when we finally stop allowing the things we own to own us, we find true happiness. Sukkot is commonly referred to in Jewish prayer and literature as “Zman Simchateinu” — the time of our rejoicing. Stripped of our material pursuits and trappings, we are free to pursue the things that really matter in life: connecting with G-d, our family and friends.
Happy holiday!
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PS — my apologies for breaking the first rule of the Fight Club during the writing of this blog post…