The Jewish Observer

            Sukkot day 1:  the congregation’s sukkah looks fresh and new.  The palm leaves thrown on top to form the roof are freshly cut, lush, and green.  Decorations representing the efforts and artistic abilities of each religious school class have just been hung with colored strings.  One clever teacher had the children decorate CD’s to hang, creating a shiny, multicolored series of reflective decorations – like stars inside the sukkah.  Clean chairs are placed inside, ready for families to eat a meal or just sit.  Indeed, parents and children are already milling around the outside of the sukkah, waiting to shake the lulav.  Our community sukkah feels alive with the buzz of Jews celebrating a joyful holiday.

Sukkot day 6:  After a few days of rain the chairs are still wet – dripping water.  Some are knocked over.  The palm leaves on the roof of the sukkah have mostly turned brown, and even those with a semblance of green hang limp and dank from the roof.  All of the paper decorations show the wear and tear from 6 days of exposure to the elements.  Only the decorated CD’s continue to look undisturbed.  Their shine looks out of place, however, in the context of the now drab surroundings of the rest of the sukkah.  Few people enter the sukkah now, partly because of the rain, partly because we are at a lull in the course of an 8 day holiday.  The sukkah looks tired, as if it is ready for us to disassemble it, to put it to rest.  I want to tell it, “just hang on for a couple more days.  Don’t fall apart just yet.”

We teach that the sukkah represents the temporary dwelling places the Israelites used as they wandered through the wilderness.  The structure is supposed to be just sturdy enough to last the holiday.  The roof is supposed to be of material that grows in nature, but arranged so that you can see the stars.  As we sit having a meal in the sukkah or even some camping out in a sukkah, we are to feel connected to the Jewish ancestral story – one of wandering, one of complete dependence on the bounty God provides.  The decorations, which thematically revolve around fruit and vegetables from the completed harvest, remind us to be thankful for the food resulting from another successful agricultural season; but with the sense that the season would not happen but for God.  Yes, the sukkah is all of this.

And there is even more.

During Sukkot we are supposed to read Kohellet, the book of Ecclesiastes.  One does not have to read deep into the first chapter to pick up on the theme.  Our time here is short.  Humans come and go.  Nothing of permanence results.  We are stuck in a pattern of repetition as there is “nothing new under the sun.”  While the physical sukkah reminds us of impermanence – the fragility of life, Kohellet forces us to confront the realities of our impermanence.  It is, in a way, a literary sukkah.  When we dwell in the words of Kohellet we feel as vulnerable to the world spiritually and emotionally as we do physically when sitting in an actual sukkah.  Our sukkot are pseudo shelters.  They are the facades of protection we erect that are easily swept away.  Kohellet reminds us that is how to sum up all of life.

My very favorite Sukkot tale comes from the Talmud.  It is the Gemara’s comment on the ruling that a sukkah erected on the deck of a ship is a valid sukkah.  It so happened that Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Gamaliel were travelling on a ship during Sukkot.  Rabbi Akiba builds a sukkah on the deck of the ship which Rabbi Gamaliel declares invalid.  Their discussion on the ship is not recorded, but one can imagine the back and forth between these two great sages.  The next morning a great wind comes and blows away the sukkah.  Rabbi Gamaliel then says to Akiba, “Akiba, where is your Sukkah?”  One can almost hear the sarcasm dripping from Gamaliel’s voice as he asks his colleague the question.

But despite Gamaliel’s snarkiness, I believe Akiba has it right.  Whether or not the sukkah survives on the deck of the ship is not the point.  The unknowing whether it might or might not survive IS the point.  Despite the probability that the structure will get blown away, Akiba builds it anyway.  Even more, as a Jew who takes the holiday seriously, I will bet that Akiba celebrated in his sukkah with utter joy.  His building it on the deck of the ship illustrates what I think is the beautiful lesson of Sukkot.  In the face of the fragility and uncertainty of life, we grasp those moments we can and we celebrate. Through our celebration, as individuals, families and communities, we affirm that life is not empty, useless.  It is a treasure chest for us to fill with moments of meaning.  It might be gone tomorrow, but we celebrate today.

Each of us is a sukkah.  We are impermanent, fragile physical structures.  We will fade a little, wilt a little with time, and then in a whisper we are gone.  But we can be filled with happiness, joy and celebration.  We can feel thankful for sustenance, family, and community.  Even though we might be blown away in the morning, we can grab hold of today, asserting for at least a brief moment, our life has extreme worth.

Chag same’ach