Both of the principle mitzvot of Sukkot involve creating a sacred space around yourself. We shake the lulav and etrog in six directions around us -- to the four sides, and above and below -- as if designating a circle around us; this is where God is, we are saying, all around us. And in the sukkah, we strangely fulfill a mitzvah by simply sitting in the center of a space -- walls all around and a roof above -- a space that represents our continual dwelling in God’s house.
What we seem to be doing here, in both mitzvot, is creating for ourselves a force-field of divine presence that we can carry with us through the year, that will serve as a kind of “cloud of glory” (the original sukkah, according to one opinion) that will continuously hover around us, making us feel connected and embraced by God.
Take a minute to feel the full power of such a force-field. Wherever you go, whatever happens to you on this desert-like journey of life, you are held inside this circle; you are bathed in its light and its love, calmed by its sense of security, and buoyed by its steadfast faith.
Inside this circle you can bring anyone or anything. Sukkot is a time of great openness and hospitality. All are welcome -- all kinds of people and all kinds of emotions. There is room here for anxiety, for loneliness, and even for despair. Whatever comes into the circle is embraced in love and faith and strength.
The sukkah can welcome all of these burdensome guests because the sukkah is incredibly strong, ironically so, since it is made of less sturdy materials than our houses, is built to be temporary and has a roof that is mandated to have holes. But no. Precisely here -- in its weakness -- we see the strength of the sukkah; the sukkah does not derive its strength from these concrete materials of the human world, but from a source beyond this world. The sukkah, like a cloud of glory, is intentionally ephemeral, as if to represent for us both our very fleeting human existence on the one hand, and on the other, the unending strength and resilience of the non-human plane we are also always connected to.
So yes, we bring to the sukkah all of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities and very human suffering; we bring them all into the sukkah, and the sukkah holds them. For a long time I have been looking for something in this world that can hold intense emotional suffering; the sukkah represents just such a container; it is a container that will not break under the strain of stress, will not sag under the weight of depression, and will not run off in the face of loneliness. Here is a space that can hold it all, a circle of love so strong and so everlasting that the pain, whatever it is, can finally relax inside it, neither denied nor fixed, but simply held in all its intensity with compassion.
We have been building this sukkah for the past two to six weeks (or maybe our whole lives), strengthening our faith and trust and sense of God’s presence, partnering with Him to create a structure that can withstand any weather. For these past few weeks, we have been holed up with God, away from the world. On Sukkot we go out of God’s sanctuary into the world, but instead of just leaving, we bring that sanctuary -- in a mobile form, like the mishkan -- out with us into the world, to carry with us wherever we go.
This is important, that we come back into the world. We can’t just remain with God, spiritually bypassing all of the real-life suffering we see and feel. We have to go back outside, armed with our mobile cloud of glory, and invite into the circle all that need its love and its strength; there are many.
But what do such guests of suffering have to do with Sukkot? This is our holiday of joy! Keep them out! Ah, but there is no real joy when one is hiding from something, when one is fearfully pushing away intruders and keeping the doors locked. True joy is inclusion, nothing held back, windows wide open to feel the fresh air. True joy comes from the knowledge that we can indeed open the windows and the doors and allow in what we had feared because now we know that there is a place that can hold it all; now we know that there is a circle of light strong enough to shine through all the darkness. “The Lord is my light and my help; whom should I fear (Ps 27:1)?” Whom should I fear? There is nothing to fear when I am encircled by light; the dawning revelation of the existence of this circle, of a container that can truly hold it all -- brings peace, brings freedom, and yes, brings great joy. Chag Sameach!
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