Both Jews and East Asians eat sympathetically
round foods during their moon festivals. In some parts of China a
rose incense is used to scent round fruits like melons and
pomegranates. But the specialty of the holiday is mooncakes. These
are usually round and decorated with reliefs of cassia trees, the
Jade Rabbit, the Moon Lady or the mythical three-legged toad
associated with the moon and tides. Depending on the region,
mooncake dough can be either moist and browned or a flaky crust
surrounding any one of about thirty fillings: melon seeds, orange
peel, cassia blooms, walnuts, date paste, crushed red beans, egg
yolk, coconut, lotus seed paste, etcetera. Our family usually buys
mooncakes with yellow yolks suspended like the moon in a
surrounding of deep red bean paste.
On the verandah of a traditional East Asian home or
teahouse, seven grasses are placed in a vase next to a neatly arranged
tray of round, white rice balls. The moonlight dances off the silken
tassels of the grasses and lends the rice balls a pale luminescence. There
is more than a hint of the Hebrew lulav and round etrog in
the silhouette of this nocturnal still-life; both the ancient Middle
Eastern rite of beating willows, practiced at Sukkoth in the days of the
Temple, and the Asian practice of offering seed-laden grasses have been
tied to prehistoric fertility cults.
In Japan, the Moon Festival is less a family event
than the Jewish celebration and more an aesthetic occasion. Its name is
tsukimi or Moon Viewing. While the bible mandates that a sukkah,
or tabernacle, for celebrating Sukkoth, or the Festival of Booths,
allow for a view of the moon, in Asia this aesthetic gesture is taken
further. In all landscaping gardens are oriented eastward in the direction
of the moonrise and the sunrise. The perfect moment that everyone awaits
during the Moon Festival is when the moon is high enough for the assembled
party to see the moon reflected in their teacups. In China, and classical
Japan, families who lived near lakes would rent teahouse-boats where they
could feast until the moon rose high enough to be reflected in the water
below.
Some of the most repeated passages of Japanese
literature are reflections on a Moon Viewing. Here is one from the 17th
century masterpiece Essays in Idleness by the famous essayist,
Kenko:
The moon that appears close
to dawn after we have long waited for it moves us more profoundly than the
full moon shining cloudless over a thousand leagues. And how incomparably
lovely is the moon , almost greenish in its light, when seen through the
tops of cedars deep in the mountains, or when it hides for a moment behind
clustering clouds during a sudden shower! The sparkle on hickory or
white-oak leaves seemingly wet with moonlight strikes one to the heart.
This next passage, also from Kenko’s Essays in
Idleness, fits the mood of the Eighth Day of Assembly, Shemini
Atzeret, at the end of Sukkot:
Winter decay is hardly less
beautiful than autumn. Crimson leaves lie scattered on the grass beside
the ponds, and how delightful it is on a morning when the frost is very
white to see the vapor rise from a garden stream. At the end of the year
it is indescribably moving to see everyone hurrying about on errands.
There is something forlorn about the waning winter moon, shining cold and
clear in the sky, unwatched because it is said to be depressing.
In Kyoto, the classical capital of Japan, there is a
famous 15th century shrine designed for Moon Viewing. The
Silver Pavilion, or Ginkakuji, is a three-story building
commissioned by a retired Shogun as the partner to the Golden Pavillion,
or Kinkakuji, built 92 years earlier. However, the intervening 92
years were marked by constant warfare that left Kyoto a burnt wasteland.
Whereas the Golden Pavilion is is surrounded by an extensive artificial
pond and sheathed entirely in real gold leaf, the Silver Pavilion is a
plainer wood and plaster structure; the Shogun’s coffers were exhausted
before he could have it completed in silver leaf as planned. Instead it is
known for the small garden of sand that faces it. The grains of sand are
raked into a pattern of waves that lap against a miniature mountain. Dull
and colorless in the daytime, this curious landscape glistens under the
rays of the moon.
This garden that served as a retreat for the retired
Shogun brings to mind a leitmotif of Japanese drama and poetry, “the moon
of exile.” The moon of exile refers to the loneliness of the exiled hero
who is filled with nostalgia at the sight of the full moon, evoking the
full moons he saw in the bustling capital.
Did the ancient Hebrews, wandering in the sands of
the Sinai under the rays of the moon, feel occasionally the same longing
for the familiarity and fleshpots of cosmopolitan Egypt?