In 1985, a few days before Sukkos, a hurricane named Gloria made landfall in New York and blew down almost everybody’s sukkahs. In the days before the storm, we were told to put tape on the windows of our houses in an X formation and stock up on food. Thankfully we didn’t lose power and the windows stayed put, but our sukkah blew across the backyard onto the grassy area which, due to the storm, now resembled a mudslide. This in itself was bad enough, but for some unknown reason some of my younger brothers decided it would be fun to stomp on the sukkah now that it was no longer vertical. My memory is hazy on whether the sukkah actually got rebuilt in time for the holiday, but either way, the next time the sukkah was erected it carried with it a souvenir from Hurricane Gloria in the form of brother-shaped footprints.
One of the reasons we say Psalm 27 in the weeks between Elul and Shemini Atzeres is because within the perek there are hints to the three major holidays that fall out during this time frame. The word “ori,” my light, references Rosh Hashana; “yishi,” my salvation, references Yom Kippur; and “ki yitzpineni b’suko,” He shelters me in His sukkah, obviously hints at Sukkos. Although it makes sense that the reference to Sukkos comes from the phrase containing the word “sukkah,” the phrase itself and the use of the word “sukkah” is somewhat puzzling. In a sentence that is supposed to convey Dovid HaMelech’s confidence that Hashem will protect him in His shelter from enemies, how is a sukkah a strong enough shelter? A sukkah is a temporary dwelling, transient, impermanent, a reminder of our fragility. Why not use the word “castle” or “fortress” or another more substantial edifice?
A few years after the hurricane, my parents bought a new, sturdier sukkah and my husband and I inherited the old one. As new homeowners, money was tight and we were thrilled not to have this extra expenditure. Our hand-me-down was smallish but cozy, the classic blue and yellow canvas that many of us had grown up with. Time had not erased my brothers’ footprints, merely softened them, and their presence in the sukkah was a nostalgic nod to my childhood. At the beginning, our decorations were primarily the glitzy tinsel ones that came in crinkly cellophane packages; my favorite one was a multihued sphere resembling a disco ball that served as an ersatz chandelier. Once my daughter started preschool, the tinsel was joined by her exuberant toddler art; one of her first creations was a project with the inventive moniker “sukkah man.” Sukkah man was a series of vertical popsicle sticks glued onto a piece of construction paper, anthropomorphized by giant googly craft eyes. Sukkah man would become the cornerstone of our Sukkos decorations, the first one to be hung up, and he never failed to elicit a smile.
The mitzvah of sukkah is derived from Parshas Emor (23:42-43): “You shall live in sukkos [booths or huts] for seven days; all citizens of Israel should live in sukkos, in order that future generations should know that I made the Israelite people live in sukkos when I brought them out of Egypt; I am G-d, your G-d.” There is a lively discussion by the Rabbanim about what sukkos Bnei Yisrael lived in after Yetzias Mitzrayim; one opinion is that the booths they lived in are a reference to the ananei hakavod, the seven clouds of glory, that led and protected them in the desert. The shoresh (root) of the word sukkah is sh-ch-ch, and the predominant places that we see this shoresh used elsewhere in Tanach are in reference to being surrounded by Hashem’s protective presence, the Shechina, which shares the same letters.
The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks takes this concept a little further in one of his essays found in his book, Ceremony and Celebration. He notes that the shoresh sh-ch-ch, when used as a verb meaning “to cover,” appears in the Torah specifically in connection with the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. He creates the following analogy: A sukkah is to a house as what the Mishkan was to the Bais HaMikdash. We thought, mistakenly, that the Bais HaMikdash would last forever; and yet it was destroyed not just once, but twice. The Mishkan however, unlike a building, was portable, which meant that no matter where the Jews traveled, it would come with them and Hashem’s Shechina would always follow them. The sukkah, like the Mishkan, is portable, moveable – a reminder that no matter where we are we have the ability to bring Hashem with us, even when everything around us is being destroyed.
We can see now that Dovid HaMelech’s language makes perfect sense. A sukkah is a symbol of G-d’s protection in the wilderness and the ability to bring Hashem with you everywhere. So when Dovid prayed to Hashem to shelter him in his sukkah, he was referencing the fact that Hashem’s Shechina travels with us no matter where we are.
The year of our tenth anniversary, we bought a brand new sukkah. It was (for lack of a more apt or sophisticated adjective) super cool. Made of fiberglass, and constructed in a way that was far more elegant than the old one, its pièce de resistance was the rain roof which folded open and closed like an accordion, and was operated by a pulley system. The flat, hard walls now allowed us to put up posters and other 2D projects, and because the sukkah was relatively large, not only were we able to put up the kids’ new sukkah projects each year, but we were also able to put up every single project that they ever made, at least the ones that were hardy enough to survive a year stored in an uninsulated garage.
In the HaRachaman during bentching on Sukkos, we say the phrase “HaRachaman Hu yakim lanu es Sukkas Dovid hanofeles,” May the All-Merciful One raise up for us the fallen sukkah of Dovid.” Once again, this is enigmatic; aside from using the word sukkah on Sukkos, what does this sentence have to do with Sukkos, and what is the fallen sukkah of Dovid? The language in the HaRachaman is taken from a pasuk in Amos and it is a reference to the reestablishment of the monarchy of Dovid HaMelech. But why are we referring to the Davidic monarchy by saying “Sukkah of Dovid?” Isn’t it more usual to use the term “House of Dovid?” The Maharal explains this in a fascinating way. When a house is destroyed, and needs to be rebuilt, the new house is not exactly the same house; it is only a new version of it, even if it looks exactly the same. A sukkah, however, even though it is much easier to destroy and knock down, is also easily rebuilt, and is exactly the same sukkah as it was before. The very nature of its flimsiness, which seems like a negative attribute, is exactly what makes the sukkah not only a perfect symbol for our monarchy but also a perfect symbol for our Jewish resilience.
After we got our new sukkah, my husband took the old one to work. Every Sukkos I would ask him if my brothers’ footprints were still visible and every year he answered in the affirmative. Eventually the sukkah was donated to some sort of sukkah gemach, and I never saw it again.
In Parshas Eikev, at the end of Moshe Rabbeinu’s life, he warns the generation entering Eretz Yisrael to be mindful not to forget their past: “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me’” (8:17). It is intuitive during difficult times of poverty, exile, and oppression to turn to Hashem; it is less intuitive to do so when things are economically good, when we live in nice houses and in a country that allows us our religious freedoms. Sukkos reminds us of this lesson; it reminds us that the permanence of our homes is an illusion, and it is within the impermanence of our sukkahs that Hashem’s Shechina actually resides.
Every Sukkos, I wonder where my parents’ old sukkah is. It’s possible that it was tossed into the trash long ago, and lies moldering in a landfill, slowly disintegrating into a million little particles. It’s equally possible, though, that the sukkah is still traveling from home to home, settling down for a bit and getting comfortable, only to be uprooted again and replanted in a new backyard. This, of course, is our Jewish destiny – to wander from place to place, scattered like dandelion seeds by fierce and angry winds, yet always replanting, rebuilding, renewing; and when we are homeless, we shelter in G-d’s sukkah, swaddled in His embrace. As time passes and the footprints of our forefathers fade, we are called upon to step into their shoes and cast our own footprints, walking towards the future into the footsteps of Mashiach.
