Space and Time change things
Sukkot is a time when we are invited as guests into a space that is not our own. The Sukkah is a space that belongs to Hashem, and into which we are invited as royal guests.
If you place something ordinary in an extraordinary space, it acquires some of the extraordinariness of that new space. Imagine taking a rather ordinary painting out of the back room of a pawnshop, framing it majestically and placing it in one of the prime halls of an art gallery. Clearly the painting’s new lofty surroundings will uplift its glamour and immediately enhance its value. We actually change objects by changing their context. It is for this reason (partly,) that moving an object from a public domain to a private one (or vice versa) on Shabbat is a Melachah (a forbidden act of technological engineering). Changing an object’s position in a profound way, changes the quality of the object itself in some discernable way too.
The same applies when you change an object from one time period to another. The same object in two different chronological contexts can actually be two different objects – certainly in Halachah and Kabbalah. A lulav is nothing more than a palm branch after Sukkot and matzo is nothing more than a cracker after Pesach.
Space and Time change people too
Just as objects change their qualities depending on their spatial and chronological contexts, so do people. People may have the same dimensions and even value system when they are at work as they do when they are in Shul, but there is still a qualitative difference in them. A person in Chutz La’aretz (outside of Israel) is not the same person qualitatively as he or she is when in Israel – and many people feel this and know it intuitively. Certainly a person in the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple) took on a different quality.
Chronological context too changes who we are: individuals on Shabbat are not the same individuals from a qualitative perspective that they are on a weekday. Certainly on Yom Kippur many of us felt that not only was the day different, special and unique, but that we were also different in very real and almost tangible ways.
Sukkot goes much further than that. It is a totally unique Yom tov, because on Sukkot we change both our chronological and our spatial contexts. We are in a time capsule called Sukkot and at the same time we are in a space capsule called Sukkah. We change the quality of our very beings by virtue of the unique time we are in and the unique space we occupy. It is a little like being a guest: Consider for example, when you invite me to your home for dinner, I am for a prearranged (by contract and social norm) period of time a guest in your home. There is a qualitative change in an individual from being master of their own home to being guests in another. The change is social, emotional, economic, and halachik (I am bound by a different set of halachot when I am a guest). The moment I walk out of your front door, I am no longer a guest. And, if I outstay my welcome from a time perspective, I transform from a being a guest into becoming a nuisance – another qualitative change!
Sukkot is a time when we are invited as guests into a space that is not our own. The Sukkah is a space that belongs to Hashem, and into which we are invited as royal guests. The Gemarrah[1] says that just as when you bring a Chagiga sacrifice you may not eat of it until after the Eimurim[2] have been brought and then “you acquire the rights to partake of it from the Royal Table like a servant receiving recognition[3]”, so too a Sukkah is Hashem’s space.
Sit back and let your host do the fussing!
Consider what this means to us emotionally and spiritually. A guest has the luxury of being able to leave everything to his host. The host prepares the meal, lays out the house, serves the meal and provides for every possible need of his guests. The guest is relieved of all worry and of any need to anticipate or to plan. The guest surrenders to the control of the host and enjoys that opportunity to relax.
That is the feeling I try to work up on Sukkot. Starting with the realization that Hashem housed us in a Sukkah during our journey in the desert. We had nothing to care about or worry about. We were His guests, He provided every single one of our needs. All we needed to do was to trust Him implicitly and rely on him absolutely. So too in our lives although it seems that we are in control and that our worrying helps, I feel a sense of superb liberation when I am able to feel myself a guest in His house. He is my host, I just need to abide by the rules of His home and He takes care of the rest! Is that again, not what King David said with his request in Ledavid Ori to “dwell in G-d’s home all the days of my life”?
If not permanently at least for these eight days, take a break, leave home, go on vacation and enjoy the hospitality of the most Divine host you will ever be privileged to experience. Have a wonderful Chag HaSukkot.
