Sukkot, Perspective, Poverty, and Impermanence

The Sukkah of Rebbe Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev

As told by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.

This is a story about the early Hassidic Rebbe Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev. It was the custom for rabbis to host the most important members of their community for Sukkot – the most wealthy, the most intelligent, the most respected.

But Rebbe Levi Yitzhak did the opposite – he picked the poor people, the people no one spent time with and invited them to his Sukkah.

The important people got upset and questioned the rabbi about it. Reb Levi Yitzhak explained: After 120 years, when I get to the true world; I know that there’s a magnificent sukkah there, the sukkah made out of the skin of Leviatan/Leviathan – the giant sea creature. It’s the sukkah where Abraham Avinu makes the blessings, Moshe Rabbeinu teaches torah, and Aharon and all the great Leviim play musical instruments during hol hamoed sukkot; and David haMelekh sings songs.

Reb Levi Yitzhak said I once had a dream that I was in the real world, the world of God, and the festival of Sukkot

came, and I wanted to be in that prominent sukkah, that sukkah of Leviathan.

There were a number of people guarding the gate to the sukkah. They asked for my name, and they began to hesitate. And they said look, Rebbe Yitzhak, you’re a very fine person but how can you compare to Avraham Avinu, to Moshe Rabbeinu, Aharon the Kohen haGadol, David HaMelekh. After all, this is a very special, exclusive sukkah.

And in my dream I answered them: in my sukkah, I didn’t invite the prominent people; I invited the little people, the forgotten people. If I did that in my sukkah, I think you can accept me and the likes of me into this sukkah of leviatan. And I was admitted.

The portrait of what Reb Levi Yitzhak did gets to the very heart of festival joy. The Rambam says in Hilchot Yom Tov – there’s a commandment of v’samachta b’hagecha – the ways that Jews rejoice is by inviting to the festival table the widows, the orphans, the poor, the unfortunate. That’s what real festival joy means, real festival sharing means. The Rambam puts it sharply:

“A person who spends time in the festival within his own family setting, eating good food, enjoying a fine meal but does not invite people who have no other place to go or do not have the wherewithal to provide for themselves good food, then such an individual who isolates himself from the unfortunates, he’s not rejoicing in the festival; he’s rejoicing in the gluttonous needs of his stomach.”