Instead, Sukkot marks and celebrates our sojourn in the Midbar - "So that your generations shall know that I (G-d) placed you in the protection of Sukkot (reference to the Heavenly Clouds of Glory or "actual sukkot") when I took you out of Egypt." Through Yirmiyahu HaNavi (2:2), G-d tells us: "I have remembered (fondly) the kindness of your youth, your love as a bride, when you followed Me into the Wilderness, into an unplanted area." Based on the sentiment in this pasuk, we might even say that all the other holidays mark that which G-d did/does for us, but Sukkot commemorates and celebrates also that which we did for G-d. Yet several p'sukim and episodes from the Torah show us a different sentiment, a different side of the story. D'varim 9:7 - Remember, do not forget, how you provoked G-d's anger in the Midbar... And the complaints about water and food, the Sin of the Golden Calf, the Sin of the Spies, Korach's rebellion, and on and on and on. You took us out of Egypt to kill us here in the Midbar. And probably the pasuk providing the sharpest contrast to the pasuk from Yirmiyahu - Bamidbar 20,5: "And why did you (Moshe) take us from Egypt to bring us to this bad place, not a place of seed... Which brings us to Shel Silverstein's Zebra Question: I asked the zebra, Are you black with white stripes? Or are you black with white stripes? And the zebra asked me, Are you good with bad habits? Or are you bad with good habits? Silverstein's poem goes on for 10 or 11 lines more, but we have enough here to turn the zebra's question towards the Jewish People. Are we white with the black stripes of idolatry and unfaithfulness to G-d? Or... let's not express the alternative. The answer, perhaps, is in that pasuk from Yirmiyahu. Although G-d admonishes us and commands us to remember all the times we irked Him in the Midbar, He tells us that He remembers our kindness towards Him. When the Jew said NAASEH V'NISHMA, that was showing our true color. All the times throughout Jewish History that individuals or even large portions of Klal Yisrael forsook the Torah - those were our ugly black stripes. Our bad habits, although we are basically a good people. A G-d fearing and a G-d loving People. When we proclaimed HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM on Mt. Carmel, to Eliyahu HaNavi's challenge (Melachim Alef 18), that was the real Jewish People. The backsliding and equivocating, the "limping between two opinions", the dancing at two weddings - that's not the stuff we are made of, that's our bad habits. And we know this because of what G-d says to us, and about us. He remembers the kindness of our youth. That describes the real "us" in the Midbar. That is one of the concepts that is what Sukkot is all about. G-d did not command us to celebrate Sukkot and to dwell in the Sukka to remind us of the times we angered Him in the Wilderness. We have Sukkot because G-d knows who we really are, and He appreciates us, and loves us. If this is what Sukkot is, then it is truly the Time of our Joy, Z'man Simchateinu. And, there is no better way to launch us into the new year. Shabbat B'reishit is the proverbial first Shabbat of the rest of the year. And with Sukkot behind us, we can look forward to a productive, meaningful year as individuals and as members of Klal Yisrael, Am HaShem. The Zebra Question by Shel Silverstein from the collection of poems, A Light in the Attic (HarperCollins Children's Books / October '81) was downloaded from the web and is excerpted here without permission. [The B'reishit Homepage]
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