Embracing Creation in all its forms

I/we have saluted Sukkot with different symbols over the years, but this time I hope to bless all the species that share our planet and our universe, Creation in its entirety.

Kids used to call me "Nature Boy" to tease me and mock my Career Book in junior high school. There was a requirement that we lay a plan for a grown-up ambition. The song “Nature Boy” was orginally written by eden abhez in 1949. He was part of the Back-to-Nature Movement in California. Musicologists have found echoes of it in Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” and in Eastern European Jewish folk music. Nat King Cole made it a surprise hit. All that remains of my future career prediction is the cover painting that I framed, a work of art by my mother, who had covered the kitchen walls with depictions of fledglings eating ....propaganda art to get me to eat more and put on a few pounds.

My current concept of Sukkot is that our Jewish calendar needs to embrace respect for Creation in all its forms. Not just for human profit or progress but for the beauty of birds and beasts. As we revere the diversity of species, we learn lessons in modesty, diversity and the dignity of observing the lives around us, among us: we welcome the hummingbirds at our kitchen window feeder, and gasp at the glory of the Baltimore orioles ...as well as the otters that seek shelter underneath the house foundation.

We need to widen our perspective with each holiday of our Jewish calendars, and to respect diversity perhaps especially with our sacred autumn migratory architectural "huts" that remind us of our wandering and that inspire simplicity and respect for the diverse creatures among us.

My mother told and taught me about a horse they had in Montreal . "Don't toss its hay, feed it with respect, even courtesy, she said." When I asked her what was her favorite pet species, she would ask for a drive to go and visit the horses in Lincoln Woods.

I never refuse to write a check for the protection of work horses, from donkeys to mules, and this year my Sukkot will invite you, dear readers, to add to the blessings of the forthcoming autumn and its memories of the pleasures of sunshine, special salutes to the species that share our destinies, designs and dignity. Special prayers for Israel and for the Jewish American culture and its immeasurable contributions to the American Dream.

MIKE FINK (mfink33@aol.com) is a professor emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design.