Sukkot

Cherishing 2nd Chances

Aryeh Bernstein, 5763

The widespread custom, recorded for halakhah, is that the night of Yom Kippur, after breaking the fast, we go out and start building the sukkah. This halakhah enjoins us always to be on the look-out for mitzvot and to run to do the next one as soon as we complete the previous one. Sukkot happens to fall a few days after Yom Kippur. Instead of waiting until the next day to start building, we should start as soon as possible TONIGHT after Yom Kippur. On the face of it, there is no inherent connection between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, just that they happen to fall in temporal proximity. We tend to experience a different impression, though, in which Yom Kippur leads into Sukkot, in which Sukkot is the conclusion of the High Holiday season.

The Torah explains that we are commanded to dwell in the sukkah, "לְמַעַן יֵדְעוּ דֹרֹתֵיכֶם כִּי בַסֻּכּוֹת הוֹשַׁבְתִּי אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּהוֹצִיאִי אוֹתָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲנִי יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם"-"in order that future generations will know that I made the children of Israel live in booths (sukkot) when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am Hashem your God" (VaYiqra 23:43). This is a little bizarre, since, in the actual narrative of the exodus from Egypt, back in Shemot, the Torah makes no reference to this booth-dwelling mentioned here in VaYiqra. This ambiguity gave rise to one of the most famous Rabbinic disputes regarding Sukkot. R. Eliezer maintained that the verse refers to actual booths that God made for the Israelites in the desert, while R. Aqiva says that the "sukkot" mentioned refer to the annanei kavod-the divine clouds of glory that protected the Israelites in the desert (Midrash Sifra, chapter 17; Talmud Bavli, Sukkah 11b). (The first appearance of the annanei kavod in the Torah is in Shemot 13:21; note that the name of the desert encampment the Israelites had just left in the previous verse is "Sukkot".) Rav Yaakov Genack, of Yeshivat Otniel in Israel, noted in a recent article that all subsequent Talmudic tradition accepts the latter interpretation: the sukkah commemorates the annanei kavod (Da'at, 49: Winter, 5749).

Be that as it may, why do we commemorate Sukkot in Tishrei, and not in Nissan, the month during which we left Egypt? Whether they were huts or clouds, the verse locates this dwelling in the exodus from Egypt, which began in Nissan.

The Sages explain that God withdrew the annanei kavod after the sin of the Golden Calf and restored them when the Israelites built the Mishkan (Tabernacle). The Vilna Gaon (in his commentary on Shir HaShirim 1:4) computes that since the gemara has it that Mosheh brought down the second set of tablets on Yom Kippur (Ta‘anit 30b), and that the next day, the 11th of Tishrei, Mosheh gave instructions for the building of the Mishkan, and that Shemot 36:3 says that then the people brought voluntary contributions toward the beginning of the construction "baboqer, baboqer"-"in the morning, in the morning", signifiying the 12th and 13th-and that the next day, the 14th, each craftsman took his portion of gold for the building, therefore, the actual construction of the Mishkan began on the 15th of Tishrei, the first day of Sukkot. Sukkot, then, marks the advent not of the original annanei hakavod, rather, of the second, restored annanei hakavod-the intimate protection from God that we earned back after having lost it once. As a result of our sin in building the calf, we were desolate and alone. When we repented by building the Mishkan, God returned to us.

Rav Yitzchak Hutner explains that the reason why Sukkot has an extra level of rejoicing even beyond the joy of other holidays is that Sukkot is a holiday conceived in teshuvah, repentance. In the performance of all mitzvot, one should be happy. To do teshuvah, though, happiness is not just an obligation, but an essential ingredient. Teshuvah is comprised of the emotional roller-coaster of feeling regret for the sin and rejoicing at having turned away from it. (Pachad Yitzchak Sukkot 9:6-8).

Sukkot is about the return to chosenness and protection after having lost it. It's about having a second chance, a rebirth when we thought we blew it. This plays itself out on the national stage as Sukkot is the closure of the cycle of 3 festivals: on Pesah, God freed us and gave us the Torah on Shavuot. Not even six weeks later, we violated this gift and lost God's protection, but on Sukkot, we did teshuvah in building the Mishkan and God gave us a second chance. It plays itself out on the individual stage as Sukkot comes in the conclusion of the High Holiday season. All year we fall short of our potential, but on Yom Kippur, God forgives us, cleans our slate, gives us a second chance. Immediately afterward, that very night, we begin creating a physical space where we can experience God's closeness.

We often think of the teshuvah process as the admission of our mistakes, feeling regret, and coming to terms with wishing for a different path. That is all, obviously, true, but it falls short. The even harder step is really implementing that new path, even though it is unfamiliar and scary. We all strive to undergo an intense experience on Yom Kippur, regretting our past mistakes and yearning to repair them. This process itself is very difficult. Even harder, though, what happens the next day or week or month, when all sorts of demons from our recent past start haunting us? Habits, friends, relatives, social expectations all urge us to stick with what is familiar, to forget about our great plans on Yom Kippur. Sukkot is about cherishing our second chance and doing something with it, not just regretting building the Golden Calf, but now, building a dignified home for the ethereal God, a home whose upkeep will demand a lot from us.

All loving relationships involve mistakes, violations, and disappointments. Sukkot trains us to believe in second chances and to cling to them as the precious gifts that they are.