Torah This Week
Welcome to Torah This Week, where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on the Torah portion of the week.
SUKKOT
Sukkot commemorates no single event. Rather, it attempts to capture the feeling of fragility and pain which our people endured as they wandered through the desert. The sukkah we build, a temporary and inadequate dwelling place, allows us to experience a life buffeted by rain and cold or unbearable heat. The rabbis asked, 'Why retain a memory of painful moments?' Rashbam tells us that Sukkot is fixed during the ingathering of the corn and wine, "that people should not be guilty of pride in their well-stocked houses." Isaac Arama adds: "We go like a poor person into a tiny booth which contains but the meal for one day and usually nothing more than a bed, table, chair and lamp."
The mitzvah of sitting in a sukkah is not simply a reconstruction of the past, but a reminder of the present world in which we live. It is as if the tradition anticipated Jewish wealth and created a prophylactic mechanism to jog our memory and sensitize our souls to the suffering around us. The Torah notes that the Ammonites and Moabites refused to provide us with water and bread when we were starving in the desert. The Torah forbids us to be like them. Maimonides tells us: One should not restrain the hands of the poor non-Jew in gathering the gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and corners of the field .... All for the sake of peace.
To fulfill the mitzvah of sitting in a fragile sukkah, we must act upon the awareness of human need and emulate God in the desert by providing all human beings with the dignity of food and shelter.
(David Elcott)
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