Here is a special message for Sukkot:
Lev. 23: 42-43 “Live in sukkot for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in sukkot so that your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in sukkot when I brought them out of Egypt: I am the Lord your God”.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has written eloquently (as usual) about Sukkot (Judaism: The Festival of Insecurity – Arutz Sheva, 9/17/13). He connects the ancient ritual of living in a sukkah with a most modern plague, that of insecurity. He suggests that historians will look back upon this era as the “Age of Insecurity” and notes that we Jews are “the world’s experts in insecurity, having lived with it for millennia.”
Rabbi Sacks continues by examining the rabbinic discussion about the meaning of the sukkah. Two Sages disagrees on its meaning. Rabbi Eliezer suggested that the sukkah represents the clouds of glory that surrounded the Israelites during the wilderness years, while Rabbi Akiva said that a sukkah is a sukkah: a hut, a booth, a temporary dwelling, without symbolic meaning.
If we follow Rabbi Eliezer, the sukkah represents the miraculous. Rabbi Akiva’s view, however, eschews the miraculous. There is nothing special about living in a hut during desert wandering. Why should this festival be centered about something so mundane?
If we follow Rabbi Eliezer, the sukkah represents the miraculous. Rabbi Akiva’s view, however, eschews the miraculous. There is nothing special about living in a hut during desert wandering. Why should this festival be centered about something so mundane?
Rashbam (Rashi’s grandson) tells us that the sukkah is there to remind us of our past. In the Messianic age, even after all of the exiles are gathered again in Israel, Rashbam tells us, they will remember their nomadic existence by dwelling in sukkot. Sukkot, therefore, is a reminder not to take our freedom and other blessings for granted. We come from humble origins, and the insecurities we face today are certainly not greater than those of our ancestors. They had faith to survive the wilderness, and we need faith to overcome of the insecurities of 21st century world.
In this light, I join Rabbi Sacks in praise of Israelis, who have lived under the threat of war and destruction for their entire existence. Whether religious or secular, Israelis display the kind of faith in the future which the sukkah is designed to instill. May they dwell beneath God’s sheltering wings on this Sukkot and in the days to come.
