MEANING IN MITZVOT by Rabbi Asher Meir

Each week we discuss one familiar halakhic practice and try to show its beauty and meaning. The columns are based on Rabbi Meir's Meaning in Mitzvot on Kitzur Shulchan Arukh.

A Stolen Sukkah

The Torah commands, "The festival of Sukkot shall you make yourself seven days" (Devarim 16:13). The additional expression "yourself" often comes to tell us that a mitzva object has to belong to us personally; for example, since the Torah tells us to take the four species "for yourselves" (Vayikra 23:40), we learn that on the first day the lulav and etrog must belong to the person doing the mitzva (SA OC 649:1).

However, the gemara concludes that this can't be the meaning of the word "yourself" regarding sukkah. The reason is that the Torah explicitly states, "Every freeman in Israel shall sit in sukkot" (Vayikra 23:42).

"This teaches that all Israel are fitting to sit in a single sukkah" (Sukkah 27b). Instead, the word "yourself" comes to disqualify a stolen sukkah (SA OC 637:3).

Since the gemara states that sitting together in one sukkah is "fitting" and not merely permissible, it seems that it is actually desirable for the sukkah to have a public character. This insight can help explain a famous puzzle from the book of Nechemia.

When Nechemia and his company returned to Yerushalaim from the Babylonian exile, "All of the congregation returning from exilt made sukkot, and they sat in sukkot, for they had not done so from the time of Yehoshua bin Nun, all the children of Israel, until that day; and there was very great rejoicing" (Nechemia 8:17).

The commentators try and explain how the Scripture can seem to imply that the mitzva of sukkah had been neglected for so many generations. The Metzudat David, for example, explains that they had not in the past made such permanent and fine sukkot.

The Malbim gives a somewhat different explanation. He write that what the people had not done since the time of Yehoshua was to sit in public sukkot, as the previous verse relates: "And they made sukkot, each one on his roof, and in their courtyards, in the courtyards of G-d's house, and in the street before the Water Gate, and in the street before the Gate of Efraim". He goes on to suggest that at the time of the return from exile there was a special regulation permitting sukkot on public property.

These sources demonstrating the special advantage of a public sukkah may imply further that every sukkah has something of a public character. The house we live in all year symbolizes privacy and separateness, but at Sukkot we leave this edifice and dwell in a temporary booth which provides much less privacy and partition between us.

We are accustomed to say that on Sukkot each individual leaves his permanent dwelling and enters a temporary one; to a lesser extent, we may say that each person leaves his private dwelling and enters a communal one.

Rabbi Meir has completed writing a monumental companion to Kitzur Shulchan Aruch which beautifully presents the meanings in our mitzvot and halacha. It will hopefully be published in the near future.

Rabbi Meir authors a popular weekly on-line Q&A column, "The Jewish Ethicist", which gives Jewish guidance on everyday ethical dilemmas in the workplace. The column is a joint project of the JCT Center for Business Ethics, Jerusalem College of Technology - Machon Lev; and Aish HaTorah. You can see the Jewish Ethicist, and submit your own questions, at  www.jewishethicist.com or at www.aish.com.