Parshas Ha'azinu + Sukkot
By Rabbi David Zauderer (Toronto, Canada)
The Festival of Succos is just around the corner (this year it begins on Sunday evening, October 13th), so I think it’s a good time to share with you Ten Things You May Not Know About the Succah:
1) Eating and dwelling in the Succah on the Festival of Succos is one of the only mitzvos (commandments) in the whole Torah which one fulfills with his entire body. [The only other mitzvos that I can think of that carry this distinction are the mitzvah for a ritually impure person to immerse in a mikvah (ritual bath), and the mitzvah of Yishuv Eretz Yisrael, inhabiting the Land of Israel.]
2) The succos that we build and dwell in during the Festival of Succos commemorate the “Clouds of Gloryâ€, which protected the Jewish people as they sojourned in the desert for 40 years (see Exodus 40:38). Our Sages teach that there were actually seven clouds that accompanied our ancestors in the desert – four protected the camp in the four directions; one hovered above, protecting the people from the searing desert sun; one cushioned their feet against the hot, sometimes rocky desert floor; and the seventh went ahead of them to assure a safe and comfortable journey by leveling mountains and filling in depressions, and killing serpents and scorpions in their path.
3) Although the walls of the succah can be made of practically any building material, including canvas, fiberglass, wood, metal, bricks, etc. (I know someone who builds his succah walls every year entirely out of plastic Coca-Cola crates!), the Torah tells us that the most important part of the succah, the s’chach (succah covering), should be made from the “waste products of the threshing floor and the vatâ€, creating a. flimsy, thatched roof (see Deuteronomy 16:13 and Talmud Rosh Hashanah 13a). The succah thus becomes the “great equalizerâ€, where although there may be divisions between Jews in different strata of society - all of us share the same flimsy s’chach roof and connection to our Father in Heaven.
4) There are two very important requirements for the s’chach, the covering of the succah. (1) The s’chach must not be attached to the ground, i.e. you can’t bend the branch of a tree over your succah to use as a roof. (2) The s’chach must not be man-made, i.e. you can’t use a manufactured wooden tabletop or a bamboo mat designed for sleeping as the roof of your succah. The reason for these two requirements, explains Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch in his commentary on the Torah, is because in order to feel the joy of G-d’s love on Succos, we need to remove the two forces which hold sway over us throughout the year - Nature, as represented by the branches attached to a tree, and Man, as represented by manufactured utensils.
5) The Torah commands us in Leviticus 23:42: “You shall dwell in booths …†This means that to fulfill the mitzvah of Succah properly we should not only eat all our holiday meals in the succah, but also dwell in the succah. This means that everything that we usually do in our homes throughout the year we should now be doing in the succah (see Shulchan Aruch O.C. 639:1). This includes shmoozing, studying Torah, snacking, sleeping, and even marital relations (where private, of course). However, one must be especially careful not to speak lashon hara (slander) in the succah due to its intrinsic holiness.
6) A corollary of #5 is that one is only obligated to dwell in the succah on the Festival of Succos if he is able dwell in it like he would at home. However, if it is raining outside, or very cold, or there are a lot of bees, to the point that he would never stay in his own home under those conditions, then he is exempt from the mitzvah of succah.
7) The mitzvah of succah is one of the very few commandments in the Torah from which women are technically exempt because it is a “time-bound†commandment (see Talmud Kiddushin 29a). However, most women join their families in the succah for all the meals, and they too receive Heavenly reward for this mitzvah.
8) [The Garden of Eden is the place where worthy souls, having passed from this world, enjoy the light of the Divine presence as they await entrance to the World to Come.] The Zohar, the foremost book of Jewish mysticism, explains that the succah generates such an intense concentration of spiritual energy, that the Divine presence actually manifests itself there in a similar way to Eden. During the Festival of Succos the souls of the seven great leaders of Israel – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and King David – actually leave the Garden of Eden to partake in the divine light of the earthly succos (Zohar Emor 103a). Each day of Succos, all seven souls are present, but each takes his turn to lead the other six. Collectively these transcendent guests are known as Ushpizin, the Aramaic word meaning "guests."
9) Many have the custom to decorate the succah with all kinds of decorations. Some hang pleasant fruit and vegetables, real or imitation, fancy decorative hangings, pictures on the walls of the Land of Israel, of scenes from Jewish History, especially of Times of the Temple, verses from the Bible, and portraits of great Jewish Leaders from ancient and less ancient times. This is in keeping with the commandment to make all our mitzvos beautiful (see Talmud Shabbos 133b).
10) The Talmud in Avodah Zarah 3a relates that in the future, when the nations of the world will complain about the preferential status enjoyed by the Jews, G-d will explain that the Jews are the “Chosen People,†because they alone are the “choosing people,†so to speak; they alone accepted the burden of the commandments, and chose to follow G-d’s law. The nations will then plead, ‘Offer us the Torah anew and we will follow it.’ ‘You foolish people,’ G-d will answer, ‘he who prepares on the Eve of Shabbos can eat on Shabbos, but he who made no preparations, what can he eat? Nevertheless, I have an easy commandment called succah, go and fulfill it….’ Immediately each one will build a succah on his roof but G-d will cause the sun to blaze as if it were the summer solstice. Each one will then kick his succah and leave… Thereupon G-d will laugh, as it is said, [Psalms 2:4] “He that sits in heaven and laughs.â€
May we all merit to fulfill the mitzvah of Succah properly this year. Amen.
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