Sukkot, Another High Holiday Following Others

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

This says "Chag Sukkot Samayakh or Happy Sukkot!  It's in cursive Hebrew;   the way people write Hebrew.  The roof is shaded but opened up to the sky.  
  

"The holiday of Sukkot begins tonight, last for 7 days and is followed by the holiday of Shmini Atzeret – Simchat Torah (which share one day in Israel and are 2 days everywhere else). During Sukkot Jews live (eat and sleep) in a hut-like structure called a Sukkah.  

The only time I experienced a Sukkah was when I lived in Israel from 1980 to the end of 1985.  It seems that as soon as Yom Kippur was over with, Sukkah plans started by everyone.  Sukkahs were created by everyone.  A prize was given to the best Sukkah by the towns.  Schools were on vacation and we spent time visiting friends in their Sukkahs and eating cookies and drinking tea.  The sides of the Sukkahs were usually made of brightly colored blankets or rugs.  People slept in them. Our leader in this was our 13 year old neighbors who was fatherless, and had adopted Danny and directed him in all this.  It was a great experience for all. 

The Talmud states two reasons for the mitzvah of living in the Sukkah for seven days.

The first is to commemorate that our ancestors dwelled in Sukkahs in the wilderness. The second is to remember the “clouds of glory” that surrounded and protected the Jews in the desert. The Talmud seems to lean towards the second explanation. If this is the case, then why do we use a hut to represent the clouds? Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to live out in the open air, under the clouds? Wouldn’t that give us more of a feeling of complete dependence on the protection given us by God?

Although, in truth, living out “under the clouds” does starkly represent total dependence on God, real life isn’t as clear cut. We all try to build structures to provide us with security and protection. We live in these structures and feel safe and in control. We view these structures as permanent and without them we could not function. The reality, however, is that our structures are really just flimsy huts that create for us the illusion of permanence and security. They fall apart when we least expect them too.

The Sukkah that we live in for seven days reminds us that our own structures of security – our houses, careers, social status – are just temporary. They last for a week, a month, a year, several years, but are then taken down. The Sukkah reminds us that our real security and protection comes not from the walls that we build but from the graces of God.

May we all be blessed with the wisdom to differentiate between the security that is true and comes only from God and the false security of the hut that just looks real, but is only an illusion.     

"Rachel Neiman wrote, "We can only imagine what life might have been like for the Children of Israel, as they wandered the desert for 40 years following the exodus from Egypt. Or maybe we don’t have to imagine.

The desert traveled by the Israelites exists to this day. And each year, Jews relive their experience by housing themselves temporarily in open-roofed booths during the holiday of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles."                        

            A late 19th century Bedouin tent as captured by the Bonfils Studio."

Resource:

Israel am News.