Building a Sukkah of Truth | Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Thau

Building a Sukkah of Truth 
By Rabbinic Intern Rebecca Thau

Is it true that the ancient Israelites lived in huts in the desert? Is the Torah true? Two different people–who had never met each other–independently asked me these questions this summer. At first, I thought it was just a weird coincidence.But then I started to wonder why–of all the questions someone could ask about Judaism-why both of these people wanted to talk about truth. Then I realized: We’re living through a time when truth’s value–truth’s mere existence–is questioned more than ever.

With swirling accusations of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” it can be difficult to distinguish honest reporting from partisan pandering. Politicians from different parties say such opposite things that it can feel impossible to discern what’s really going on. And the preponderance of “deep fake,” AI-generated material leads us to question what we see with our own eyes. Even as we wait with bated breath for news that we might finally be nearing an end to two years of war in the Middle East, many of us have felt confused and conflicted, unsure what to believe. As one Jerusalem-based journalist recently asked, “how are sane citizens in Israel, or anywhere else, supposed to know what’s true and to do the right thing?”

Our growing inability to distinguish fact from fiction feels disorienting–and has real-world consequences. I fear that this trend contributes to our intense polarization–and perhaps even to recent political violence.
So, it makes sense that my conversation-partners wanted to know what Judaism says about truth. This question feels more pressing than ever. It turns out, Judaism cares a lot about truth–so much so that our rabbis compare truth to God. The Talmudic sage Rabbi Chanina insists,“God’s signature is Truth.” Truth distinguishes God-because truth is like God. This comparison teaches us that truth is sacred, worth striving for, and difficult to discern.

Multiple times a day, we declare:

Shema Yisrael,
Hear O Israel,
Adonai is our God,
Adonai is One.

If truth is like God, as Rabbi Chanina teaches, then truth is also one. But this doesn’t mean that our tradition imagines truth to be a clear, digestible, easy-to-agree-upon entity. Quite to the contrary, Judaism’s theory of truth is complex. Let’s take Scripture as an example. One of our traditional Sukkot readings, the Book of Ecclesiastes, describes itself as דִּבְרֵי אֱמֶת, words of truth. And every time we bless the Torah, as we will tomorrow morning, we call it Torat Emet, the Torah of Truth. But we know that Tanakh has some fanciful stories and internal inconsistencies. So, what could we mean when we call it all “true?”

For Bible scholar Benjamin Sommer, these snags in the text teach us “that truth is something we strive for more than something we can possess.” In other words, scripture isn’t “true” because it says one digestible thing, but because it conveys the breadth of humanity’s never-ending interaction with the Divine–and our imperfect attempt to perceive and preserve those interactions.

Sommer’s contemporary perspective builds off of traditional rabbinic techniques. Our sages gifted us a messy, multivocal interpretive tradition: Inventive stories called midrash, legal disputation known as machloket, commentaries and commentaries on those commentaries. They believed in a range of possible interpretations because, like God, truth can be elusive.

Our attempts to discern truth might only get us a sliver of the way there, so we need lots of different approaches to advance toward that ultimate goal and our rabbis teach that disagreeing in good faith brings us closer to perceiving the truth. A mosaic comprised of multiple interpretations is a truer picture than one vantage point alone.

To be clear, though: Our rabbis did not think that everything is relative or anything goes. Rather, they believed that hearing many unique interpretations helps us see the truth of our texts–And our world–more fully. Yes, our rabbis disagreed and debated–but their differences were about how to interpret text, not about whether text existed. By first agreeing on a basic set of shared facts, and then interpreting those facts in unique ways, our rabbis offer us a guidebook. Can we emulate their example?

Can we keep striving for truth,
Even as we acknowledge that we’ll never fully grasp it
Or agree on how to interpret it?

Our contemporary crisis of truth is bigger than any one of us can solve alone. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. There are steps we can take to honor and preserve truth in our lives. We can consult multiple news sources instead of jumping to conclusions or staying siloed in our preferred echo chamber; we can rely on scientific consensus instead of discounting expertise; we can take other people’s opinions seriously instead of disregarding everyone who disagrees with us; we can go out of our way to verify what we see on social media instead of immediately reposting.

And, most crucially, we can remember that our religious tradition compels us to see truth as sacred and worth pursuing. This Sukkot, in addition to comparing truth to God, perhaps we can also compare truth to the sukkah itself: A sukkah is fragile, built from a couple of poles and sparse schach over the top. This flimsy construction isn’t a flaw–it’s a crucial feature. For a week, as we dwell in a physical structure that’s vulnerable and easy to knock down, we develop a deep sense of humility towards the natural world. Now imagine if we saw truth in this way, too. Imagine if we honored truth’s fragility,

Humbly admitting that our perspectives are limited, while sanctifying our obligation to build towards it. How might this outlook shift our mindset and actions? How might it strengthen us for this bewildering moment?

May the physical sukkot we dwell in this week serve as a constant reminder that truth is holy, often elusive, and always worth striving for.