Sukkot סֻכּוֹת Impermanence, Refuge, Gratitude

Why are we to dwell in a sukkah? What is the point of it?

Rabbi-Student Akiva Weisinger

We sit in the sukkah in the manner in which we dwell in our permanent we homes, and each Jew is commanded to eat, sleep, and sit in the sukkah in a manner of קבע [keva], permanence, though the Sukkah itself is temporary (Sukkah 26b). There is no attempt to deny the fact that this is a temporary structure, no demand to actually move into the Sukkah, but to sit in it “like the way you dwell”. You are sitting in a temporary hut, fully cognizant of its temporary nature, but you are relating to it as if it is permanent.

Rabbi Alan Lew, z''l, from This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared

...We sit flush with the world, in a ‘house’ that calls attention to the fact that it gives us no shelter. It is not really a house. It is the interrupted idea of a house, a parody of a house…So it is that the sukkah, with its broken lines, its open roof, its walls that don’t quite surround us, calls the idea of the house to mind more forcefully than a house itself might do.

And it exposes the idea of a house as an illusion. The idea of a house is that it gives us security, shelter, haven from the storm. But no house can really offer us this. No building of wood and stone can ever afford us protection from the disorder that is always lurking all around us. No shell we put between us an the world can ever really keep us secure from it. And we know this. We never really believed this illusion. That’s why we never felt truly secure in it [...]

In the sukkah, a house that is open to the world, a house that freely acknowledges that it cannot be the basis of our security, we let go of this need. The illusion of protection falls away, and suddenly we are flush with our life, feeling our life, following our life, doing its dance, one step after another.

Why would we then want to be in a Sukkah? How do we understand that Sukkot is z'man simchateinu, a time of joy if we no longer feel secure?

Rabbi Alan Lew, z''l, from This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared

This is a commandment we fulfill not with a gesture or a word, but with our entire body. We sit in the sukkah with our entire body. Only our entire body is capable of knowing what it felt like to leave the burden of Egyptian oppression behind, to let go of it. Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzraim. The root of this word is tzar, a narrowness. Egypt was the narrow place. Only the entire body can know what it felt like to be pushed from a place of dire constriction and into a wilderness, a spacious, open world. Only the body can know what it felt like to be born. Only the body can know the fullness of joy, and this is a commandment that can only be fulfilled with joy.

I agree with Rabbi Lew, but I also think it is about the fact that we can see, smell, touch, hear, and, (in the case of the food we try to eat during Sukkot,) taste the outside and nature. We are able to spread our bodies, but it is also about full immersion into the world around us. It is a moment we are to stop and rally revel in it. But, a moment isn't enough, so we take 8 days to appreciate it and love it -- to feel its impermanence, but in a joyful way, not to be scared of it -- to be excited by it.

So we now (or later when we go into the Sukkah) take a moment by yourself to close your eyes and allow your sense of smell and hearing to take over. We see nature a lot, but do we really see it. Allow your eyes to focus on some of the beauty, some of the colors, some of the confusing aspects, maybe even some of the bugs. Touch some flowers, some leaves, some grass -- not just as you would walking, but really take the time to be in awe of the amazing structure we find rooted in our every day lives, but don't always take the time to recognize. When eating in the sukkah, enjoy the food and think about where it comes from -- harvested foods and what that means and the joy we gain from eating these foods.

In my opinion, the joy of Sukkot is the ability to be in awe of what is around us and to take the time to recognize it.