The Sukkah: The Shack as a Symbol of Strength

I was fortunate to spend a year of college in Israel, studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I have many wonderful recollections of that year, but there is one that always comes back to me during this season.

It was 1981, months before the final Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. When the university offered tours of the Sinai for visiting students, commencing the day after Simchat Torah, I knew that this was an opportunity that I could not let pass. I developed a great appreciation for the barren beauty of deserts that year and during subsequent trips to Israel, always enjoying the trips down the Arava Road to Eilat, or wandering in the Negev, around Be’er Sheva, Sde Boker, Arad, Avdat, and Mitzpe Ramon.

My trip along the eastern tier of the Sinai (what then remained under Israeli administration) introduced me to places that were mentioned in the Bible, like Hatzerot and Di-Zahab. There was so much to see and do in this desolate wasteland, but one memory remains vivid. It was during a visit to a Bedouin encampment in Hatzerot. There we were led into a structure for guests. I looked up and took note of the roof, offering more shade than sunlight but with the blue sky visible. As I had just celebrated Sukkot in Jerusalem the week before, I knew that I was now sitting in a sukkah just like those that our ancestors lived in as they made their 40-year trek from the slavery of Egypt to their promised homeland of Eretz Yisrael. I felt great excitement sitting in this sukkah in a place where our forebears had made similar sukkot over three thousand years earlier. Indeed, the sukkah is a durable symbol that reaches back to our earliest years as a people.

Rabbinic law goes into detail concerning the construction of the Sukkah, which may seem strange for a temporary structure intended to last only a week. But these laws are intended to guarantee one thing: that a kosher Sukkah is one that may be sturdy enough to withstand routine elements, but not solid as to be invulnerable to excessive conditions.

It may seem stranger to consider the use of the Sukkah as a metaphor. We find in our tradition a recurring reference to sukkat shalom, a shelter of peace. If the Sukkah is, at best, a temporary structure with a porous roof, should we not hope to find the shelter of peace described as a permanent structure, perhaps a binyan shalom?

Peace, by its very nature, is a fragile structure. It is always susceptible to collapse from strong winds, but it needs to be strong enough to withstand the day to day pressures that could bring down a weaker structure. Peace does not exist in fortresses where people live in isolation from others; nor does it flourish in closed quarters that allow no light to permeate its inner parts.

This metaphor has a place in the celebration of Sukkot. The Torah speaks of seventy sacrifices offered during the seven days of Sukkot; rabbinic tradition has it that each of those offerings corresponds to one of the seventy nations believed to exist in biblical times. These offerings were brought for the welfare of these peoples, even though their religions and cultures were anathema to the ways of the Jewish people. And still, each of these peoples, as part of the family of humankind, were peopled by those likewise created in the image of God, and still worthy of ritual offerings on their behalf.

Fragility is a theme of this holiday. It comes at the time when the cold winds start to blow, when in Eretz Yisrael the rains just start to come. It is a time of material uncertainty, a time when our future sustenance comes to question. Only days after standing in judgment for our lives before God, we stand again, now with palm, myrtle, willow, and etrog, pleading hosha’na! Save us! Give us, we pray, a year of sustenance. For those of us who live in urban society, we may fail to grasp the importance of this moment, but this holiday was fraught with meaning in agrarian Israel.

But as serious as this holiday is, it is celebrated with the greatest of joy. It is ironically known as z’man simchateinu, the time of our rejoicing. This sobriquet for the holiday is derived from Lev. 23:40: “you shall take [the four species] and rejoice before the Lord, your God, for seven days.” The Mishna speaks of the water drawing festival during Sukkot as a celebration unparalleled. “Whoever had not seen the water drawing celebration never witnessed a joyous celebration in his days,” says the Mishna (Sukkah 5:1.) If the focus of the holiday is the fragility and unpredictability of nature and human sustenance, doesn’t it seem ironic, even audacious, for such celebration?

Such juxtapositions are not uncommon in Judaism. Yom Kippur, with its themes of repentance and judgment, is not a morose day, but a day of joy, a celebration of both our capacity to seek forgiveness and to mend our ways, as well as a faith in a loving and forgiving God. Sukkot, with its overriding concern for continued sustenance, is celebrated with a joy that comes from a confidence of faith in God as provider. Prayer from a position of confidence, even at a moment of grave concern, is stronger than petition from despair and anguish, when one is most in need. But even more important is the rejoicing that is part of the obligation connected with the observance of the holiday, as if to say that we should not become overwhelmed by our concern over what the future might bring.

For now, we should sit back and enjoy our meals in the sukkah, with the hope that we will be strong enough to withstand the occasional winds that affect our lives.