The sukkah teaches us how to rejoice

The full moon as we peer through the thatches of our sukkah in Mount Zion Center

SUKKOT
The Sukkah Teaches the Jews How to Rejoice

Between Yom Kippur and the "Season of our Joy", between "you shall chastise your souls" and "you shall rejoice before the Lord your God" --- when the spirit is on proper condition, it is possible to look after one's bodily needs. After the Jew has cleansed his soul with fasting and prayer he is entitled to celebrated his "Festival of the Ingathering" - a sound spirit and a sound body.

After the fast on Yom Kippur, the Almighty says to the Jews: ---Let bygones be bygones; henceforth we begin a new account. When one is cleansed of all sin, one can begin to enjoy life anew.

But the Jew may not celebrate his "Season of Joy" in the same manner that other people celebrate their festivals, with banquets in fancy hotels, carousals in the night clubs. --Such celebrations are too coarse, too fraught with sensuality. They can lead the Jew from the straight path. His soul, which he has just purified with fasting and prayer, may again become defiled. Such a "Season of Joy" is inconsistent with Yom Kippur.

Seven days you shall dwell in huts. In small sukkot - with a modest roof of twigs and foliage, through whichyou shall be able to see the sky and through which the sky shall be able to look in upon you -- there shall you celebrate your "Festival of the Ingathering", your season of joy.

Go forth from your permanent dwelling and live in a temporary one. Refined spirits do not feel at home in spacious houses. Purified spirits can not tolerate excess and gaudiness. Why, then, confine them between thick walls among expensive furnishings?

Moreover, high living leads to overweening pride and narrowness of heart. Lest you come to believe that the wealth you have amassed is all yours and can never be taken away from you and that therefore you have no obligation to aid the needy, mark well that your whole life is but a temporary dwelling, but which endures but seven days...

The pursuit of strictly selfish happiness --- the satisfaction of only one's desires, blunt man's feelings and turns him into a wild beast. He no longer has any interest in the welfare of his brother, his friend or his neighbor. He also becomes alienated from his society and his people, becomes supercilious, acknowledging acquaintance with no one. Such a life is not a Jewish life, not the manner of life God wishes us to live.

S. Ansky, in his great dramatic work, "The Dybuk", relates the following:

"A wealthy Hassid once came to his Rabbi for advice. Despite his great wealth, this man was a miser. The Rabbi led him to a window facing the street and said to him, 'Tell me, whom do you see there?' The chassid gave the name of everyone he saw through the window.

"Then the Rabbi led him to a mirror and asked him whom he saw there. The Hassid replied that he saw no one but himself."

" 'You see my child,'said the Rabbi, 'this is made of the same glass as the window, save that it is coated with some silver -- and already you see no one but yourself.' "

Links to eternity: Jewish holidays and festivals; homiletical essays by Harris L Selig (pp 89-91)

Setting up our suka in Mount Zion Center

Yom Tov lanu Chag Sameach
y'ladim nagila
l'sukatenu baoreach
Yeshua Hamashiach
baruch haba!