Dvar Torah for Succot
Dr. Yonatan Mirvis, International Director

Succot is a unique festival in that it "falls" on us with almost no preparation. This is in contrast to the other festivals, all of which have "lead time". On Pesach the Torah commences the preparation in the celebration of Pesach in Egypt, on Rosh Hodesh Nissan (Exodus Chapter 12) while the Sages took preparation back to Purim. Preparation for Shavuot commences from the counting of the Omer which begins on the second night of Pesach, culminating in the seven weeks of counting with Shavuot on the 50th day. The Rabbis made lead time for Rosh Hashana with the blowing of the shofar from Rosh Chodesh Elul with the ten days of tshuva becoming lead time for Yom Kippur. However, to the best of my knowledge Succot has no lead time, neither prescribed by the Torah nor prescribed by the Sages. Should Jews not be commanded to build succot well in advance? However we see quite the contrary. The mitzvah is to commence immediately after Yom Kippur, leaving us with a mere four days of preparation for Succot.

Why this difference? I would like to suggest two possible answers, one which relates to the substance of Yom Kippur and the second which relates to the substance of Succot. Yom Kippur is the "Shabbat Shabbaton", the day in which time is most sanctified. On this day of tshuva one of the most important aspects of our life upon which we focus, is our appreciation and use of time. From the moment we open the Kol Nidre tephillah with the bracha of “Shehechiyanu”, in which we thank G-d for keeping us alive and enabling us to reach this day, until the blowing of the shofar after neilah, time gains a new significance. In the Temple days the Kohen Gadol was not allowed to sleep on the night of Yom Kippur and one can imagine how conscious he was of time. As we move closer to the end of the Fast many of us are overcome by a longing to eat and drink and here too the "slow" movement of time gives it a special significance. This break in routine enables us to count every moment and appreciate every second. Our proper use of this Divine benevolence is at the heart of Yom Kippur. Hence, having analyzed our use of time and gaining a new sense of its appreciation we do not really need lead time in order to build a succa. We now have a different set of priorities and are able to seize the moment and commence our preparation for Succot immediately. We need lead time when we try to juggle our multiple priorities and multiple commitments; however when we know what is really important we do not require this lead time at all.

A second answer emerges from the substance of the nature of Succot. On Succot we are commanded to live in a temporary dwelling (dirat arai) and make an evaluation of our use of space. In living in this succa and engaging in hospitality in an area, which by definition is far less secure and probably far smaller, we suddenly find a very different relationship to our utilization of space. A second aspect of the succa is that this temporary dwelling is in reality anything but private. Every conversation can be heard from the outside and the “roof” is not hermetically closed from neighbors above. For seven days when we move from our permanent home into the succa we have to be very careful about what we say, how we say it and how we behave within the confines of "home". There are no secrets in the succa. This life adjustment becomes a paradigm for how we use space and how we should conduct ourselves in space. It is important that this reevaluation carries itself over back into the home to ensure that we utilize our space in a suitable way and we relate to one another in a befitting manner. Given the importance of our living in a temporary dwelling it is important that we should not have lead time to build it. It is important that we are aware that we can be both happy and spiritually uplifted in a structure that takes no more than four days to construct. This in itself is a very important lesson and thus not only do we not need lead time, but lead time would be detrimental.

These two aspects of Jewish living, i.e. the appreciation and utilization of time and place are as we see fundamental to the rhythm of Jewish living. It is fitting indeed that the opening two courses of our Israel Mini-School (Maftechot) that is about to open after Succot, will focus on these two concepts Zman (Time) and Makom (Place).

Wishing you all Chag Sameach,
Yonatan

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