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Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Haazinu - Sukkot Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52
By Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel - One of the most colorful and engaging Festivals of the Hebrew calendar is Sukkot, the Festival of Huts (Booths) or Tabernacles – and in the difference between these two translations lies the major issue of this commentary. There is a great deal of pageantry in actually building and living in a miniature kind of new habitation for seven days (or eight, in the Diaspora); the earthy greens and yellows of the vegetative ceiling (sekhakh) from whose openings we must be able to see the sky, the magnificently decorated make-shift walls emblazoned with fruits and vegetables, colorful depictions of Holy Temple celebrations bringing together past glories and future expectations, and the benign portraits and/or Biblical quotations about our special Sukkah guests, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David (and nowadays many add the matriarchs, Miriam, Zipporah and Deborah). Especially the children in my family looked forward to Sukkot more than to any other holiday – despite the interrupting rains we had to suffer in Manhattan during the Israeli harvest season.
But what is the real symbolism of the sukkah, what is it that we are attempting to recreate? The Sages of Talmud engage in a very fundamental dispute, with R. Akiba maintaining that the sukkah represents the actual temporary huts or booths our ancestors had to set up in the desert, and R. Yishmael arguing that the sukkah expresses the clouds of Divine glory, the rays of Divine Splendor, which encompassed the Israelites during their sojourn (B.T. Sukkah 11b); R. Akiba would call it the Festival of Huts (or Booths) and R. Yishmael the Festival of Tabernacles (Divine Sanctuary).
And this dispute is not merely a theoretical one: Rav Haym Soloveitchik maintains that the commandment of sukkah must be performed with specific intention and understanding, since the bible enjoins us “to dwell in the sukkah for seven days… in order that your future generations shall know (and understand in a precise manner) that I (the Lord) enabled the Israelites to dwell in sukkot when I took them out of the land of Egypt” (Lev. 23:42,43). So what are we experiencing in our sukkah? Is it the makeshift huts of our wanderings through the various deserts of our exiles – despite which we nevertheless managed to survive – or is it the majestic and impregnable Divine fortress of protection and spirituality which encircled us throughout the desert experience? Is the sukkah a hut or a tabernacle?
Fascinatingly enough, the official Codes of Jewish Law, the 16th century Shulhan Arukh, compiled by Rav Yosef Karo, decodes the issue: “ ‘You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days… because I enabled the Israelites to dwell in sukkot’: these are the clouds of glory which encompassed them so that they would not be smitten by the dry heat and sun…” (Orah Haim 425,1). There is certainly a logic to this decision. Jewish Law likewise maintains that “one who is uncomfortable is freed from the obligation of dwelling in a sukkah”, which is defined as the wind or the flies making it impossible to sleep in the sukkah or rain spoiling the soup you are about to eat in the sukkah (Orah Haim 640, 4).
Now generally speaking, discomfiture is not a valid reason for exempting an individual from a mitzvah obligation. I have never heard it said that a person whose ear drums are discomforted by the loud music at weddings need not perform the commandment of helping the bride and groom rejoice! Apparently, therefore, there must be something intrinsic to the sukkah which makes it incompatible with discomfiture. If the sukkah symbolizes the desert booth, there must certainly have been uncomfortable invasions by desert creatures and a pounding hot sun which would make sitting in such a sukkah intolerable; nevertheless, so did the Isrealites live for forty years. Only if we maintain that the sukkah expresses Divine clouds of glory, impervious to any foreign element of annoyance, would it make sense to rule that one who is uncomfortable need not sit in our sukkot today.
I would argue, however, that perhaps the Talmud is teaching us another lesson entirely. The sukkot in the desert were actual make-shift huts, temporary dwelling whose occupants were vulnerable prey to all the hazards of difficult desert living conditions. But since they felt that they were living under Divine protection, that the G-d who had freed them from Egyptian slavery was still watching over them, they experienced themselves encompassed by rays of Divine splendor and they, the Israelites, became impervious to discomfiture. I believe that this is the message of the Holy Zohar:
“It was taught to the people of the world that anyone who has a share in the our holy nation and our holy land will dwell in the shadow of Divine faith and receive the sacred guests who will bring joy in this world and in the world to come” (Emor, 2 78). Whether your sukkah is a silo or a sanctuary depends on whether or not you feel that Your nation and your lands is under the loving protective covering of the Divine, come what may.
It is told that Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev would sit in the sukkah and continue to eat, sing and study Torah during the worst rain storms. One of his disciples cited the Shulchan Arukh: “If rains fall, one must (leave the sukkah) and go into the house… Anyone who is freed from the commandment of sukkah (because he is uncomfortable) and still does not leave it, will not receive any reward; he is considered a commoner (Greek, idiot)” (Orah Haim 639)
Responded Rav Levi Yitzchak: Indeed, anyone who can be dwelling within the Divine Rays of Splendor and still feel uncomfortable is truly a commoner!”
Perhaps the deepest message of the sukkah is that true joy and comfort stems not from a fancy palatial residence replete with expensive oak furnishings and chandeliers, but rather from familial love and togetherness within the backdrop of our Biblical guests and under the protection of a loving G-d. As the Talmud teaches, “When our love was strong, we could lie on the edge of metal implement and there was sufficient room; now that our love is no longer strong, a bed of sixty cubits is not large enough.” (B.T. Sanhedrin 7a).
Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameach
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel
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