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| Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks |
This quote from a 2013 Sukkos message by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks sums up much of what Sukkos is all about.
There are 2 interpretations given by the sages about what the Sukkah represents. R’ Eliezer tells us that the Sukkah represents the miracle of the Ananei HaKavod (Clouds of Glory). God provided this for our ancestors to guide and protect them by day and night through the wilderness. R’ Akiva tells us that the Sukkah simply represents what our ancestors lived in during their trek - simple huts of a temporary nature. And we ‘live in huts’ during Sukkos to remind us of that.
The significance of that is explained by the Rashbam. He says that once we were living in the land of Israel with all our blessings and affluence we should remember our humble origins so as not to become arrogant and say that whatever we have achieved materially, we have done with our own two hands - and forget Who is really in control of everything. But as Rabbi Lord Sacks notes there is another more positive explanation:
(Our Ancsetors) may have been, at times, fractious, rebellious, ungrateful and wayward. But they had the courage to travel, to move, to leave security behind, and follow God’s call, as did Abraham and Sarah at the dawn of our history. If the sukkah represents God’s clouds of glory, where was “the loving-kindness of your youth”? There is no sacrifice involved if God is visibly protecting you in every way and at all times.
But if we follow Rabbi Akiva and see the sukkah as what it is, the temporary home of a temporarily homeless people, then it makes sense to say that Israel showed the courage of a bride willing to follow her husband on a risk-laden journey to a place she has never seen before – a love that shows itself in the fact that she is willing to live in a hut trusting her husband’s promise that one day they will have a permanent home.
I find that faith today in the people and the State of Israel. It is astonishing to me how Israelis have been able to live with an almost constant threat of war and terror since the State was born, and not give way to fear. I sense even in the most secular Israelis a profound faith, not perhaps “religious” in the conventional sense, but faith nonetheless: in life, and the future, and hope. Israelis seem to me perfectly to exemplify what tradition says was God’s reply to Moses when he doubted the people’s capacity to believe: “They are believers, the children of believers” (Shabbat 97a). Today’s Israel is a living embodiment of what it is to exist in a state of insecurity and still rejoice.
I can only echo Lord Rabbi Sacks sentiments. Over the least few years I have witnessed much the same thing. The joy of the holiday is felt through out all segments of Israeli Jewery. From the most Charedi to the most secular. The country is filled with the spirit of joy that the Yom Tov of Sukkos represents despite the dangers that lurk daily just beneath the surface. As the tragic murder of Ari Fuld recently reminded us.
Mi K'Amcha Yisroel.
At this time I want to wish all of my readers a wonderful and joyous Yom Tov. Chag Sameach.