Sukkot is zman simchateinu, our season of joy. Ironically, the festival begins this year on the secular date of October 7, a date sadly associated with both the massacre perpetrated on that date and its aftermath. This experience has significantly and tragically limited our expectations of the world.
When it comes to those expectations, Sukkot itself creates ambiguities and questions as it is a holiday that focuses on our relationship with the nations of the world with a mix of both hope and doom. It was to benefit those nations that we offered 70 bulls during the Sukkot Mussaf service in the Beit Hamikdash. Yet, those bulls decrease in number daily, indicating the progressive deterioration of those nations, and the festival ends with Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, a time Hashem reserves for the nation that continues to dwell alone (Sukkah 55b and Rashi Bamidbar 29:11). Likewise, Zecharya – in a prophesy we will read as the haftorah this October 7, the first day of Sukkot – speaks hopefully of the celebration of Sukkot being joined by those of the nations who will remain with us at the end of days, and direly foretells the destruction of those who fight us until the end.
That mix of hope and doom remains our reality. In the spirit of Zecharya, we are obliged to proactively and vigorously address the threats posed by those actively fighting us and seeking our destruction. But we must also seek out and hope to find others who stand with us and will join in the ultimate celebration of Sukkot.
That hope is real, and the Sukkah is the place to nurture it. Both because of the prophesy of Zecharya and because it is what Hashem taught Yonah.
During the closing hours of Yom Kippur, we read the story of Yonah being called by G-d to deliver a message of Teshuva to the great Assyrian city of Nineveh. Yonah resisted the mission, having no interest in facilitating whatever superficial and short-lived changes the Assyrians would muster in response to Hashem’s call for change. Yonah wanted them to be destroyed, to get what he believed they deserved and not be spared by G-d’s abundant – or to Yonah’s mind excessive – compassion. Ultimately, of course, G-d gave him no choice, summoning him from the depths to deliver His message. While Yonah complied and did what G-d instructed, his heart was not in it, and when G-d indeed decided to spare Nineveh after they had shown remorse and changed course, Yonah expressed anger with G-d.
Hashem’s response to Yonah – “Is your anger justified?” – was, however, open-ended enough for Yonah to wonder what the future held for Nineveh. He therefore built for himself a “sukkah” outside the city where he sat to observe what would become of it. Would G-d listen to Yonah and revert to his original decree that the city be overturned, or would He insist on compassionately pardoning them? Would the changes the people of Nineveh instituted be sustained or would they quickly reverse themselves, proving Yonah right and convincing G-d to change course?
Yonah sits in the sukkah awaiting the outcome, hoping to see Nineveh’s destruction and his anger justified. Hashem, however, steps in to teach him that in that sukkah he should be seeking the very opposite, that just as Yonah was devastated to see the kikayon gourd wither, he should shudder at the thought of a city destroyed. True, if they would not change, they may need to be destroyed, but Yonah’s sukkah should not be the place to wait for Hashem’s judgment to materialize. It should instead be like the sukkah of generations, where we bask in the forgiveness granted to us by Hashem due to our Teshuva on Yom Kippur, whatever its expected durability, and where, filled with hope, we anticipate the fulfillment of our prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for the world to recognize Hashem and give honor to the Jews as His people.
That is our sukkah, a place from where we look out with hope, looking for improvement in Hashem’s world rather than its ruin, finding those who will stand with us and join in the ultimate celebration of Sukkot.
U’fros aleinu sukkat shlomecha. We ask Hashem to spread over us His sukkah of peace.