What is a house?

Torah study

RABBI THOMAS ALPERT
Sukkot/Leviticus 23:33-44

"You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I Adonai your God." (Leviticus 23:42-43)

1. Why do booths play such a major role in Sukkot?
   
2. Why is it important to mention that it was God who commanded the Israelite people to live in booths for seven days?
   
3. If this holiday commemorates the Exodus, why does it occur after Yom Kippur rather than proximate to Pesach?
   

• Most men appear never to have considered what a house is and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. (Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience, Penguin Books, p. 78)
  
• The Zohar, the principal Jewish mystical text, teaches that figures from Jewish history "visit" the sukkah as ushpizin, "guests." Every Jew welcomes the celestial guests. ... In addition, however, the Jew must help the poor rejoice. Why? Because the portion of the celestial guests whom the Jew has invited belongs to the poor. (Zohar 103b)
  
• For in the end we are, we Jews, assirei tikvah, "prisoners of hope." We suffer with all who suffer; ... we remember the winding way through the desert; and we know there is not only a Promised Land but also a promised time. (Leonard Fein, Against the Dying of the Light, Jewish Lights Publishing, p. 125)
  

1. What would Thoreau think a sukkah can teach us about "what a house is"?
   
2. What does the Zohar tell us about helping the poor on Sukkot? How might you help the poor rejoice this Sukkot?
   
3. What does being a "prisoner of hope" mean to you?
   

The home-repair season is drawing to a close in my part of the country, and I still have not fixed my roof. That omission weighs on me. I want to live protected by strong walls and a strong roof. But that is not enough. Destruction can still come, whether by flood or by poverty or by airplane. Sukkot reminds us of our vulnerability.

But it does not lead us to despair. Instead, it commands us to build a structure with the understanding "to have considered what a house is." On Yom Kippur we tried to reach the core of our spiritual selves. On Sukkot we try to reach the core of our physical world - the sukkah - the reflection of God's connection to our world.

During the rich harvest, we overvalue our accomplishments, which are reflected in the sometimes lavish homes in which we live. So, listening to the Torah, we set up booths, flimsy huts that stand in contrast to the shelters we build and take pride in during the year.

From these huts we share our harvest with the poor; we remember that our booth is not so different from the shelter they have all year long and that they are not so different from us. Our ancestors, the ushpizin, already knew this.

So we set up booths, and we touch something of God's presence in our sukkot. We glimpse a promised time, after our repairs have been completed, when all our fellow humans will have enough of what they need to rejoice; when each of us will be sheltered in the open, under our vines and our fig trees; and when no one will make us feel afraid.