My friend was trying to borrow a succah for the upcoming Y”T (as her plans changed due to COVID) and finally declared, “I’m going to stop asking around and just buy myself a succah. I need some stability.”
I couldn’t resist. “If it’s stability you’re after, you should definitely buy a succah. Now there’s a real symbol of permanence.”
But kidding aside, maybe it is. Here are the beautiful words of Rabbi Akiva Tatz:
The sukkah requires a roof that is very insubstantial… — it must be flimsy enough to allow the rain through; it is good if you can see the stars through it too.
In fact, one of the root meanings of the Hebrew word sukkah is “to see through.” …The tempting illusion is that our security derives from the material; the sukkah teaches that if there is security, it comes from elsewhere.
…So dwelling in booths serves to sensitize you to the higher world, to draw your gaze up metaphorically, through the sukkah’s thin cover and not to your mansion’s concrete roof for security. This is a tangible experience of leaving the material and going out into a different kind of existence.
A different kind of existence.
The succah symbolizes the ultimate Permanence — Hashem as the Source of all blessing, all abundance, all security. Moving out to the succah frees us for a time from our human concerns, our all-consuming need to busy ourselves with moving the levers and cogs of the world. To revel in the simplicity of four walls (or three, or two and a half), the sparse overhead cover, table and chairs, a few cots, posters and paper chains in place of oil paintings and crystal chandeliers. The succah reminds us that we don’t need very much to be happy, and we don’t need to do very much to feel peace. Maybe what we need to feel both of those things — happiness and peace — is less, not more. When everything else is stripped away, we are left with our true, eternal selves and with Hashem. Permanence.
All year we are so busy trying to build — careers, resumes, bank accounts, muscle tone, reputations, social circles, new homes. We believe that so much is up to us because it seems to be cause-effect, I put in the effort, I see results — or I don’t, and look for someone to blame, or blame myself. On Succos, I let go of trying to build cover for myself, and surrender to the vastness of the heavens. I let myself feel my smallness. I let myself not know. And I enjoy it.
Wishing you a good Y”T, a gutten kvittel/piska tava, and so much happiness and peace throughout the rest of Y”T and always. Remember that Hashem is in charge, you can stop trying so hard, and everything will be good and is good.
P.S. Buy (or make) a succah decoration, shake the lulav and esrog at least once, spend an afternoon in the succah, cook a pot of soup, and drizzle maple syrup over your challah!
