Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
We know that any time we observe a mitzvah, we should focus our attention on some aspect of the mitzvah that will make the mitzvah more meaningful to us and help us use the mitzvah to reinforce our connection to Hakodosh Boruch Hu. Finding that point of connection is often very difficult. However, with the mitzvah of sitting in the sukkah, the Torah itself gives us the reason we should observe the mitzvah: “So that your generations will know that I caused Bnei Yisroel to dwell in sukkot when I took them out of Egypt.” However, in order to focus on this reason, we must first understand what those sukkot actually were.
The Gemara records the famous disagreement about between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva concerning the identity of these sukkot. While Rabbi Eliezer claims that these sukkot were the clouds of glory that surrounded and protected Bnei Yisroel throughout their forty years journey in the desert, Rabbi Akiva claims that sukkot refers to the actual tents that Bnei Yisroel dwelt in during this time. In either case, why celebrate this particular aspect of our desert history when Hashem performed so many other miracles for us, most evidently, providing us with manna and water? And, if the focus of the holiday is on the sukkot, why do we celebrate the holiday in Tishri and not in Nissan, the month we actually began our sojourn in the desert?
In E’li Hem Madeira, Rabbi Schlesinger provides a beautiful answer to our first question. While food and water are absolute necessities for life, and the miracles of the manna and the water from the rock provided these necessities, by providing us with sukkot, Hashem was exhibiting His love for us beyond basic necessities. Further, Hashem gave us the manna and the water after we complained that we had no food and water, while the Hashem provided the sukkot spontaneously out of His love.
Our celebration of Sukkot is a recognition of that love and our wish to reciprocate. Rabbi Reiss notes that there was a custom of Bnei Yisroel to actually kiss the sukkah upon entering it and upon leaving it. We also know that we expend much time, energy, and even money on decorating our sukkot and making them as beautiful as possible. We pray that the energy we expended created angels that will rise up to Hashem as an expression of our love for Him.
Every day when we recite the Shema, we recite, “And you shall love Hashem will all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might/resources.” The Sefas Emes suggests that each of these terms refers to one of the Three Foot Festivals. Pesach, the holiday of freedom, is associated with freedom from the yetzer horo, the passions of the heart; Shavuot reminds us of our souls leaving our bodies as we received the Torah; Sukkot represents loving Hashem with all our resources, especially those outside our persons. We offer Hashem not only ourselves, but that which is beyond our selves, beyond necessities, reciprocating His love for us.
The theme of Sukkot, following Yom Kippur, is about love. As the gates of heaven are closing during Ne’ilah, we pray that they remain open. On Sukkot when the gates of heaven appear to have closed, writes Rabbi Reiss, Hakodosh Boruch Hu, Hashem is inviting us unto His home, to spend time with Him. The zman simchteinu, the time of our joy, is our reaction to Hashem’s smile kviyachol as He greets us into His home.
During Yom Kippur, we did teshuvah out of fear. Such teshuvah transforms deliberate sin into negligent, accidental sin, thereby still leaving open the possibility of another trespass, with the Satan waiting anxiously to trip us up. But on Sukkot, our love for Hashem transforms our teshuvah to atonement not out of fear, but from a desire precipitated by love, thus thwarting the attempts of the Satan to trip us up again. The sukkah enclosure, according to halachah, need only be two full walls and another half wall, resembling a hug. As Shvilei Pinchas describes it, a full wall is like a complete arm, from shoulder down to finger tips, while a half wall would be either from shoulder to elbow, or from elbow down. As Shir Hashirim states, “His banner above me is love… His right arm embraces me.” And, as we say daily before we recite Shema, “He chooses His nation Yisroel with love.”
It was necessary for Sukkot to be observed after Yom Kippur, continues the Shvilei Pinchas, after we have done tesuvah and removed the barriers that prevented us from connecting to Hashem. It is in this context that we can homiletically understand the joy of simchat beit hashoevah, the ceremony of drawing the water to be used in the Beit Hamikdosh, a ceremony observed on Sukkot. We see in these waters the double reflections of ourselves and, metaphorically, of Hashem. We feel His embrace, much as we felt His embrace in the desert through the Clouds of Glory.
If we see Sukkot as the celebration of the mutual love between Hashem and ourselves, we can understand why the festival is celebrated on the fifteenth of Tishrei instead of in Nisson. That love was profoundly demonstrated on the fifteenth of Tishrei in the desert.
Rabbi Bernstein quoting the Gra zt”l explains through the timeline of the desert experience. When Moshe brought the Luchot Habrit down from Sinai, Bnei Yisroel were sinning with the golden calf. While Hashem agreed not to destroy Bnei Yisroel, He removed the clouds of glory. Moshe went back up to heaven to plead for Bnei Yisroel and a renewed relationship with Hashem. Moshe came down with the second Luchot on Rosh Chodesh Elul, with forgiveness, but our relationship with Hakodosh Boruch Hu had not yet been fully repaired. In hopes of fully repairing the relationship, Hashem commanded us to build the Mishkan, for He wanted to dwell among us. Many materials were required for the construction. Bnei Yisroel was so intent on rebuilding the relationship, of reestablishing the tremendous love with Hakodosh Boruch Hu, that they ran with such alacrity to bring all the materials needed that Moshe had to stop them; they had brought all that was necessary so quickly and were still intent on continuing to donate. With this expression of love, the construction of the Mishkan began on the fifteenth of Tishrei. In reciprocation of the love Bnei Yisroel demonstrated for Hashem, Hashem brought back the clouds of glory, and surrounded and embraced Bnei Yisroel in those clouds of glory, symbolizing the reestablishment of the great reciprocal love between Hakodosh Boruch Hu and Bnei Yisroel, and attesting to Hashem’s wish to dwell among us. And so we pray that Hashem will again build the Beit Hamikdosh, and reestablish the destroyed sukkah of David, and that Hashem again dwell among us.
While Pesach and Shavuot celebrate historical events, writes the Sefas Emes, Sukkot celebrates the joy we experienced in donating to the construction of the Mishkan. We need to mirror that same joy in performing all our mitzvoth, in reexperiencing our connection to Hashem. The joy of Sukkot is in experiencing Hashem’s embrace that the clouds of glory symbolized, now experienced as we enter Hashem’s domain through the portals of our sukkah.
Any mitzvah that deals with memory has ramifications for eternity. Here we are explicitly commanded that the mitzvah of living in the sukkah is for “generations to know that Hashem settled us in sukkot when He took us out of Egypt.” Since we no longer have the clouds of glory, how are we to remember this experience today? The Netivot Shalom explains that just as we were under Hashem’s direct providence and guidance in the desert through the clouds of glory, so are we still under Hashem’s providence. Our faith and belief in this protection is our remembering the clouds of glory in our generation. By going out of our secure homes into the temporary sukkah, we are demonstrating our vulnerability and our faith in Hashem’s protection. The mitzvah of sitting in the sukkah involves our entire body, immersing ourselves completely in this act of faith. This absolute belief in Hashem’s hashgachah, in His constant care for us is easily often forgotten during the year. That is why Sukkot comes after Yom Kippur as a physical demonstration of the faith we proclaim on Yom Kippur. As Rabbi Mintzberg notes, we celebrate being in the Divine presence. As we sit under the shade of the schach, we feel we are in Hashem’s shadow. This is the feeling we should carry with us throughout the year.
Now we can take the idea of the clouds of glory one step further. The clouds provided not only protection, but also guidance, as they led the way and showed the path Bnei Yisroel were to follow. Similarly, writes Rabbi Wachtfogel, we must also be guided by our faith in Hashem’s protection and leadership. We need to try to live the sukkah mindset and look for Hashem’s direction in our lives. We need to follow the command of “Follow Hashem/Acharei Hashem teileichu.” Get out of your house and look upward, urges us Rebbetzin Smiles. Connecting to the reality of Hashem’s constant presence in our lives is the source of the greatest simchah.
But there is also support for Rabbi Akiva’s opinion that our sukkot commemorate actual huts. Sukkot is the holiday of the harvest. After putting in so much effort to plant and reap the harvest, it is easy for the farmer to gloat and feel that it was his own effort and agricultural acumen that produced this wonderful crop. To keep us from forgetting Who actually produced the harvest, Hashem commanded us to leave our houses and remember that Hashem led us through the desert where we lived in huts for forty years, and Hashem provided for all our needs. So too it is Hashem Who is providing us with our needs today, writes Rabbi Bernstein, citing the Rashbam Gra zt”l. Recognizing that everything comes from Hashem eliminates worry from our lives, thus allowing us to live lives of joy.
Rabbi Wolfson Gra zt”l points to another connection between the anenai hakavod and physical huts. Citing the Sefer Rokeach, Rabbi Wolfson suggests that Rabbi Akiva’s referencing actual huts refers not to the huts of forty years in the desert, but to the flimsy huts Bnei Yisroel sat in as they fought Sichon and Og before their entry into Eretz Yisroel. Under natural conditions, enemies would dig deep trenches or strong forts for protection. These flimsy huts would offer no protection from the enemy, but, although the anenai hakavod remained in the camp, Hashem continued to protect Bnei Yisroel through virtual clouds of glory even though Bnei Yisroel was on the battlefield. Rabbi Akiva is not opposing Rabbi Eliezer’s view. He is simply adding an additional dimension, that we are also remembering the miracle of the protection these huts offered in battle. Similarly, we should feel we are surrounded by Hashem’s presence even when we are not in the sukkah, when we are out in our daily lives in the real world.
This is the message we invoke with the recitation of the prayer upon leaving the sukkah at the end of the chag. We ask that the mitzvoth that we performed “accompany us when we leave the sukkah, and may they enter our homes with us in life and in peace. May there always be upon us a heavenly protection from Your holy abode…” And May Hashem restore for us the fallen sukkah/Tabernacle of David.
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