If we think about it Succos is really a Mitzvah packed Yom Tov. The verse in Psalms as expounded by the Medresh reads, “You will make known to me the path of life” – this refers to the 10 days of repentance from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, “the sevenfold joy” – meaning the seven Mitzvahs which are celebrated on Succos including the four species, the Succah and the special commandment to be full of Joy on this festival.
Reb Sholom Schwadron asked, why then is the Yom Tov called after one of the other Mitzvahs other than Succah?
He answered that the deeper message behind the Succah is intrinsically different than any of the other Mitzvahs that we perform on Succos. The Succah represents the very essence of our existence in this world. It provides the ‘why’ to all other Mitzvahs! Why do we spend a life full of doing Mitzvahs? Because we understand that this world is but a temporary existence. None of this physical world is of any intrinsic worth – all we can take with us is our good deeds. This is what the Succah teaches us. Step away from our house and enter into a temporary setting. This temporary setting is to remind us that our very existence is temporary. This suggested Reb Sholom, is the backdrop we should have in mind when performing all other Mitzvahs.
On Shabbos that falls during Succos we read Koheles – Ecclesiastes. Towards the end of this Megilah which vividly portrays the ‘vanities’ of this transient world – we read, “Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a glad heart…. Enjoy life with the wife you love…”. When a life is lived against the backdrop of appreciation of the short lifespan of this world – the central message of Koheles – then we are ready to enjoy life without getting lost and over indulging in this world.
The Alshich [1508-1593] points out a famous symbolism that we find in the Succah. We know that the Succah’s minimum wall requirements is that there should be two walls and a third wall the length of a tefach – a handbreadth. However these minimum walls have to be arranged with the two ‘full’ walls touching each other and the ‘part-wall’ not touching the two ‘full’ walls. The resulting shape of these three walls therefore had to be in the form of a letter Hay – ה.
The Gemora tell us that the world was created with the letter Hay. This can be understood on many levels but most simply we can say that the letter Hay has a numerical value of five and so: this world is a place that is appreciated through the five senses.
When we leave our houses and enter the Succah we enter into the letter Hay – the real world. Real life on this world is represented by the Succah. We are vividly reminded that that the whole of this world is nothing but a temporary abode. All material pleasure and success are transient and our dreams of establishing ourselves in an unassailable position in this world are nothing but fantasy. When enveloped in the letter Hay we remind ourselves that ‘you can’t take it with you’ and ‘what you are is more important than what you have’.
The Torah instructs how every fifty years, at the beginning of the Jubilee year all land would revert to its original owners. This meant that when selling land during the time when the Jubilee years were in action one could actually only lease the land for as many years were left till the end of the fifty year cycle. The verse explains, “the land shall not be sold in perpetuity (for ever!) for the land is Mine; for you are sojourners (Ger) and residents (toshav) with Me”.
These two expressions “sojourners” and “residents” are contradictory! Either we are a “ger”, just passing through or we have settled here to stay as a “toshav” – the root of the word being “shav” – to sit, to stay. The two terms are mutually exclusive and cannot simultaneously apply to one individual. How then do we understand the verse – in what way, are we both described as sojourners and residents on the face of this world?
The Dean of Gateshead Yeshiva, Rav Gurwicz explains that the verse is describing the two aspects that make up man – body and soul. Our bodies are but sojourners, we are here for our allotted time. Our souls however are residents – they are permanent fixtures in the world. As Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier puts it, “You are a spiritual being, temporarily having a physical experience!”
This most basic idea is central to anything that Judaism preaches – and is the reason that the Yom Tov is called after the Succah. We are here for a purpose, in the famous words of the Mishnah, “Rabbi Yaakov said: this world is like a lobby before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall”. The difficulty lies in living our lives with this concept at the forefront of our minds. Not being able to sell land permanently was supposed to drive home this message that our time on this world is but a fleeting moment – we [read: our physical bodies] are just visitors here.
We have to learn how to deal with our schizophrenic make up. Our bodies are pushing us to live the moment but our souls are driving us to earn eternity – to survive past the grave. We must both sojourn here and keep moving because our soul is the only part of us that is the resident in the world. As we step out and leave our homes into the Succah we are to remind ourselves of the transient nature of our time here.
On an even more practical level, I strongly believe that a regular trip to an old age home is a stark reminder of the fate of our bodies. Subconsciously a visit to the elderly penetrates through our body and reminds us that we truly are “just visiting!” We are all on a journey, this world is just a corridor towards the next world.
Good Shabbos, Good Yom Tov,
Yaakov