The days of Sukkot for me are among the highlights of the year. All the Days of Awe are, well, awesome, but Sukkot is aptly named a time for rejoicing. The harvest is in, looks like rain, the temple service is filled with prayers for the coming year.

Oh, wait, we don’t bring in a harvest In Vancouver or Toronto. Two thousand years after that Temple went up in flames, we live by and large in cities. Vancouver could certainly use rain (don’t laugh), but the downpours we pray for are supposed to fall in the land of Israel.

So what is special about Sukkot? It is benching lulav (praying with the lulav and the etrog).

Which brings me to the main thrust of this article. Magic. Magic and superstitions, bad luck or a good mazal, that lucky star.

Perhaps the ceremonies of Sukkot are not magic, but they are magical.

Having been at the Kotel (Western Wall) during Sukkot, I remember clearly a sea of tallitot and the high wands of the lulavim as hundreds blessed the season.  The end of Sukkot found hundreds more celebrating drawing of the water. It was then that I realized the utter pagan foundation of this beloved ceremony, this sympathetic magic.

Perhaps pagan is a strong word: we assume that our ceremonial practices are, and ever were, monotheistic. Yet, the origins of this festival seem rooted (no pun intended) in harvest times, when Israelite farmers dependent on abundant rain and plentiful harvests to sustain life sought ways to make heaven hear their pleas.

Judaism believes that prayer and repentance at this time of year will reach the One whom we trust, just as 2,000 years ago, the people of Israel believed their Temple rituals would bring the needed rain.

A reading of books such as Jewish Magic and Superstition by Joshua Trachtenberg reveals a myriad of practices that Jews have observed, reflecting a very un-Jewish back story.

Take the magic circle drawn by the bride when she circles her husband seven times. Clearly meant to protect this fragile male from the evil designs of creatures like Lilith who try to steal the groom. Ditto breaking the wedding glass, the sound of which scares away demons.

Or changing the sick male child’s name to Alter to fool the angel of death.

Or not blowing the shofar on Erev Rosh Hashanah, to hide the fact that we are about to open ourselves to a new year.

Now, I am not suggesting that we pin amulets on our children, or draw a circle of salt around the baby’s crib, or tie red thread around a boy’s crib to protect against Lilith’s demon children, or refrain from the ceremony of cutting a boy’s hair at age three (to fool the angel of death into thinking he is a girl.)

But I do say that we should recognize in many of the practices we still observe (including covering the mirrors in a house of mourning) echoes from a far past when Judaism rubbed up against very un-Jewish beliefs that slowly made their way into mainstream Judaism.

I love the austerity of rabbinic Judaism. Rather than having the burden of the Law, of which we have often been accused, the joy of observance fills our lives with meaning.

But sometimes, just once in a while – and especially at Sukkot – I revel in the connection I can make with those Israelite farmers thousands of years ago who wanted to use every possible symbol in their thirst for water.

No charmers, wizards (OK, maybe Harry Potter) or mediums for me.

But now and then, do we not all find ourselves trying mightily to bring an influence into our lives from when our ancestors looked wherever they could to find just the right answer to their prayers?