Sukkot on Campus after the Intifada

Campus plazas and quadrangles were occupied by Palestine activists in the spring of 2024, camping in solidarity with Gaza and rallying for war against Israel.

This fall and next year's fall, during the harvest festival of ingathering, each site of a campus tent encampment should be graced by a Hebrew music festival and communal sukkah encampment maintained by the Jewish and allied students, camping in solidarity with the generation of the wilderness, as a memorial from the exodus from Egypt. The Gerim Defense League pledges $67 to every student group that undertakes this project, up to a total of $3,000 in hopes that the mitzvah goes viral and nationwide. Having tolerated the Palestinian occupation last spring, college administrators would have no grounds to refuse permission. Jewish and allied students should also camp in solidarity with every Jew who has been forced into exile over the ages, and this year in particular they should camp in sukkahs in solidarity with Israeli and Palestinian Jews who will be forced into exile again if the plans of their enemies succeed - the plans of the SJP, JVP, DSA, the PFLP/Samidoun, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Iran, to “free Palestine”. This is the time to answer them, and also remind ourselves, that the land belongs to God and tenancy on it is conditional on acceptance of his covenant: From the River to the Sea, the holy land is not for free.

The Palestinians are winning the public relations war in students unions across America, because their activism has these elements, which Jews also have in abundance but neglect to deploy:

1. They have universalist religious or humanitarian messages of salvation. (which are all somewhat oppressive)
2. They have eschatological visions of the future. (which are now regressive, having already been tried and found wanting. They are no longer progressive, although framed as such.)
3. They move people to take collective action to seek liberation.
4. They have enthusiastic group chanting, which people find inspiring (despite the vicious falsehoods, violent incitements, and suicidal tendencies)
5. They speak and preach in public, and they hold vigils, marches, and demonstrations, and rallies in public.

All even better versions of these are found in Torah Judaism than in the three ideological systems underpinning Palestinian identity and the war against the Jews and against Israel (orthodox catholic christianity which is based on abrogation of the law, supercession of the Jewish people by the church as the “spiritual Israel”, the “new Jerusalem”, and the “light to the nations”. Next, militant Islam which borrowed the anti-Jewish polemics and replacement theology from christianity. Finally, the anti-capitalist border free Marxist-Leninism of PFLP/Samidoun which primarily co-ordinated the campus intifada - Hegel and Marx translated the christian supercessionism into the dialectics of critical reason and historical materialism. For details, see “Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition” by David Nirenberg, Norton, 2013)

But most people never experience these elements of Torah Judaism or have any idea that they even exist. And Jews themselves experience them only in synagogue, in Hebrew, and/or during liturgy, and not in public in an immanently realizable way, which is why Jews and pro-Israel activists are losing the public relations battle: they are failing to joyfully fulfill the mitzvot in which they are commanded, and neglecting to give gentiles their place within the commonwealth of Israel as Noahide God-fearers, and failing to understand how this can bring both personal and collective liberation to the nations. God's prophets have repeatedly predicted that exile would be the penalty for this sin of failing to joyfully do the mitzvot, starting with Moses in Deuteronomy 28:47, and the prophets have been proven correct time and again. Its time to listen. Would you rather serve your enemies with pain and suffering, or serve your God with love and rejoicing? Shema Israel!

The Harvest festival of booths is the time of Israel's rejoicing, zman simchateinu, and it provides an opportunity to change this situation by getting out of the dorms and dining halls, out of the libraries and computer labs, out of the synagogues and study halls, out of the yeshivas and beit midrashim, and to sanctify God’s name among the multitudes, by performing the commandments (mitzvot) and singing the hallel psalms 113-118 in the sukkah, under the starry skies, and to bear witness in public of the exodus from Egypt, in order that this and future generations might know. To this end, I pledge $67 to every student group that puts up a sukkah on their campus, as a place to study and organize, to eat and drink, and to sing and dance, to discuss current politics, ancient prophecy, and future redemption, and the universal and particular commandments. Beautifying your sukkah will soferut will remind Jews of these, and of why sukkot was commanded, and help them fulfill the mitzvah of “שננתם לבניך” and “למען ידעו דרתכם”. Here are examples of Scribal artwork in Sukkah of CK"I, Scribal artwork in Sukkah of CB"Y. Gentiles will naturally come, attracted by the beauty of holiness. Although they are not obligated in the mitzvot, and therefore should not be taught to say the berachot over “kidshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu”, and they should be taught the eschatalogical significance of chag sukkot and the universal message of the feast of harvest ingathering (Chinese and Persians have this as their autumn full moon festivals. Europeans and Americans could also learn and adopt it). Whereas the mitzvot around sukkot are particular to the Jews, the mitzvah of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest, is a universal obligation (chova). Although it doesn’t come with any particularly ritual requirements, Gentiles could and should sing hallel with you - especially psalm 117 - even if only the niggun, while they read the psalms in translation. They can also learn the book of Ecclesiastes, and prophecies that concern them, such as Zechariah 14.

I invite all other nadivim to donate to any student group that undertakes this. Donate $117 for Psalm 117, which is addressed to the gentile nations, and gives them words to sing during the holiday liturgy. Donate $67 in honor of Psalm 67, which has a universal message, an eschatalogical vision, is meant to be sung in public, and is meant to move the gentile nations to collective liberation. Donate $19 in honor of Psalm 19 which tells of universal revelation through the laws of nature, that the “skies proclaim the glory of God”. God-fearing gentiles also have a place in the biblical story of Israel, and Jews need to start fulfilling their role as “kingdom of priests” by teaching these elements of the true Torah faith.

1. The Universal Noahide covenant of the rainbow and its seven commands. This includes a prohibition on theft, which means no vandalizing buildings, obstructing access, or disrupting classes or events, or other theft from the public. Therefore we pledge an additional $18.50 to each group who wishes to buy 7 commands wallet cards to propagate. Everyone participating in the sukkah action should accept on themselves the yoke of these commandmants, and to manifest holiness as a mark of distinction between them and the Palestinian and anarcho-bolshevik protestors.
2. The Eschatological vision of an end to war and world peace, of Isaiah 2:2-4, when the “law goes forth from Zion and the word of God from Jerusalem”. Gentile nations prophesied to worship with the Jews at the feast of Sukkot, after the war of Gog and Magog in Zechariah 14:16-17.
3. Collective liberation begins with rejecting idolatry, and continues by fulfilling the command of “doing justice”, which is universally given to all humankind (Genesis 9, Micah 6:8).
4. The holy Tehillim (psalms) can be sung or chanted. pro-Israel protest chants can be composed, such as this From the River to the Sea, the holy land is not for free, and are likely to be poetically and morally superior to the Palestinian chants, and therefore more attractive to undecided stude and voters, because Israel has an inherently better argument in its favor, a better case can be made, and Jews have a far richer intellectual and artistic tradition to draw from. They should stop neglecting it.
5. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, all proclaimed oracles against surrounding nations and against foreign empires, as did other prophets. Jonah was specifically called to prophesy against the Assyrian capital Nineveh, and Obadiah against Edom. Jews today have a unique opportunity to continue this legacy, by challenging all-comers to a parliamentary style debate on the Israel-Palestine questions. Although Jews have the winning argument, they are generally neglecting to make the case in public. But every time I've stood in disputation, by adversaries have been unable to answer; I've reduced them to silence. Its as if their “tongues rot in their mouths”, as the prophecy Zechariah 14 predicts.

This is how you will quell the campus intifada, and how you will de-radicalize and de-program the residents of Gaza. May you also have such success, and even better success beyond it, along with all Israel.