"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - The Sukkah is one of the most important expressions – and symbols – of Jewish traditional life, a fragile, thatch-roofed hut which becomes our primary dwelling- place for the seven days of the Sukkot Festival. But precisely what does it symbolize? In the Talmud [B.T. Sukkah 11b] Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva debate the issue, focusing their discussions on the correct interpretation of the following verse: "That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths [sukkot] when I brought them out of the land of Egypt..." [Lev. 23:43]

Rabbi Akiva maintains that the sukkot in question refer to physical booths, while Rabbi Eliezer understands them in miraculous terms, as referring to 'clouds of glory' which descended from the Almighty to protect the Israelites on their desert wanderings.

Why should it matter if it's a cloud of glory as opposed to a physical booth? Also, according to Rabbi. Eliezer, how do we apply the term 'clouds of glory' to huts which can be rendered uninhabitable by a rainy sky or a burning sun?         

Given that Sukkot arrives at the heels of Yom Kippur; our day of Forgiveness, and given that the Sacred Zohar insists that the final Divine Judgment is only given on the last day of the festival; Hoshanah Rabbah, it seems that Sukkot is intrinsic to the repentance process, which began with Rosh Hashanah. And if Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva disagree as to the identity of the 'booths', perhaps their argument is about the nature of this repentance process.

The Holy Zohar speaks of a lower form of repentance called 'tshuva tata’ah' and a higher form called 'tshuva ila’ah'. Repentance for a specific transgression- a particular sin, is considered the lower form because it deals only with a specific problem, without affecting the person as a whole.

Repentance that affects the essence of the personality, shocking the soul and jolting the heart, has the potential to lift up the entire person into an entirely new direction, and that is what the Zohar calls 'tshuva ilaa'. Since its domain is the total person, such repentance has a greater chance of transforming the individual into a totally new persona.

From this perspective, a careful study of Maimonides' Laws of Repentance will reveal a close connection between the quality of the repentance and the debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Akiva as to the symbolism of the Sukkah.

The first kind of repentance Maimonides addresses describes the penitent going through a humbling process: "The path of repentance is for the penitent to cry out constantly before G-d with tears and beseeching. He gives charity according to his ability, distancing himself from what he did: He exiles himself from his place, because exile serves as atonement for sin causing them to be more subdued, humble and subservient."  (Laws of Repentance, Ch. 2, Hal. 4)

The command to leave one's permanent, usually comfortable and sometimes even luxurious home for the fragile, flimsy hut-sukkah certainly removes a firm foundation and a secure roof from the sukkah occupant; causing him to be humbled and thus worthy of G-d’s forgiveness: "...And he exiles himself...because exile helps to create forgiveness..." Such a sukkah of exile represents the actual desert huts that the Jewish people erected during their forty-year wandering in the desert.

Several chapters later, Maimonides codified a different kind of repentance, a state of perfection which places the penitent close to the Divine Presence, a more ennobling and qualitatively uplifting penitential experience.

"Repentance is on the highest level of religious devotion because it brings a person close to the Divine Presence. Yesterday, he was hated by G-d and alienated and abominable. But today, he is beloved, delightful, close, a dear friend." [Laws of Repentance Ch. 7, Hal. 6])

Maimonides states that to be " a friend of God" is the highest achievement of repentance. Indeed, when we speak of a repentance which brings a person to the Divine Presence, we are truly reminded of Rabbi Eliezer’s 'clouds of glory.'

The picture becomes even more poignant when we realize that on Yom Kippur we were entirely in the presence of G d (lifnai HaShem), like angels in heaven. But angels, like trusty servants, can usually be seen waiting in front of G-d’s house “for the Holy One to emerge, but not as living within the House. It is on Sukkot that G-d, in effect, brings the Jewish people into His house, as King David asks: "One thing have I desired of the Lord, and I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple." [27:4]

From this point of view, the sukkah becomes G-d’s Sacred Sanctuary, the nuptial home into which He invites His sacred bride, Knesset Yisrael (historic Israel). And the seven days inside the sukkah correspond to the seven days of celebrating a marriage. The seven holy guests who are invited each of the seven nights to the sukkah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David, correspond to the “new faces” who are necessary guests at a dinner if the seven nuptial blessings are to be recited after the Grace after Meals. 

Humble sinners seeking forgiveness for their transgression(s) enter into a fragile hut, symbolizing the Israelite dwellings in the desert. But there is also the higher standard of the true penitent who has soared to the stage of Divine fellowship and merits the “clouds of glory” which usher him into the Nuptial Canopy of the Divine. It is for this, Rabbi Eliezer’s sukkah that we all yearn!

Shabbat Shalom

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