Leave Your Resentments at The Door

When you think of the Sukkah, you think of walls and sechach—a foliage roof. Yet, the name Sukkah is all about the foliage roof, the sechach; that is why it is called Sukkah. Sukkah is a derivative of sechach. The foliage roof indeed makes the Sukkah; otherwise, it is just a four-walled hut.

But by the same token, the walls are also critical; a foliage roof without walls does not a kosher Sukkah make—a kosher Sukkah must have at least three walls. In other words, a kosher sukkah must have both, walls and a foliage roof. This raises a question: Why does the name Sukkah only reference the sechach—the foliage—and makes no mention of the walls?

House and Home
The difference between the walls and the sechach is like the difference between a house and a home. A house is a physical structure; if it has four walls and a roof, it is a house. A home is a nurturing environment that defines the inhabitant’s personality. The home is nurturing, warm, and cozy. The house is impersonal, cold, and devoid of meaning, a lump of stone.

There can be no home without a house. You can’t create a home in the vast outdoors. If you have no space to call your own, you have no space to make your own. The house defines a space that is uniquely yours. It shuts out everyone and everything that is not yours. Outside is not you, inside is you. Now that the walls have excluded the outside, you have a space to call your own. What you make of that space will turn the house into a home.

So, it is true that your domicile is a house and a home. There can be no home without a house. Yet, if someone asked you which of the two defined your space most, you would likely say it is your home. The house is just a space. The home is you. The home bears your unique stamp. It streams your personality. It embodies your spirit. It is welcoming, nurturing, and warm. It is you. The house is not you.

The Sechach and the Walls
The same can be said about the Sukkah’s walls and its sechach. The walls define the space, the sechach fills that space with holiness and warmth. A foliage roof supported by posts with no walls is not a Sukkah. This is not because there is no holiness in it. It is because there are no walls to contain the holiness. There is nothing to contain the Sukkah’s holiness. It dissipates into the great outdoors.

Only when you have walls do you have a defined space that the sechach can fill with holiness. The sechach makes the Sukkah by filling it with the unique environment you experience when you enter the Sukkah. The walls don’t cut it. They merely mark the space. They form the house. The sechach is the Sukkah’s essential ingredient. This is why the name of the Sukkah refers only to the sechach.

The Cloud Canopy
The sechach is emblematic of the canopy of clouds that accompanied our ancestors during their forty-year journey across the desert. Inside the cloud canopy, the Jews enjoyed a miraculous environment. Their clothes were self-laundered. The climate was perfectly controlled in all seasons.

The clouds also served as an impregnable fortress impervious to attack from the outside. On a physical level, it means that no army could pierce the cloud cover. On a spiritual level, it means that the cloud formed a spiritual incubator that nourished the soul.

Within this environment, Moses taught the Torah and nourished the spirituality of our people. This was the home in which the mettle of the Jewish people was forged. This was the home in which the fabric of the Jewish people was sewn. The clouds radiated sanctity and spiritual warmth that inspired and uplifted.

The sechach replicates this holy environment. When you enter a sukkah, you feel you are in a special place. It is the only Mitzvah that you don’t perform; instead, you enter into it. It is an enveloping environment that soothes and uplifts. It brings joy and delight. It speaks to the soul. In the Sukkah, you feel uplifted; it is like entering a different realm. A holy home. A warm home. G-d’s home.

Under its shade, we eat, drink, gather, study, converse, and sleep. We nurture our children and celebrate our Judaism. It serves as an incubator of sorts, setting the tone for the entire year. Everything we do, we do in the Sukkah during the holiday of Sukkot. This means that we do many mundane things in the Sukkah; we live life in the Sukkah. But as we live it, we feel that it is somewhat higher. Enhanced by the touch of the Sukkah, enlightened by its glow, and warmed by its aura.

The Sukkah transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. The mundane into holy. It is G-d’s home.

Heed The Walls
However, there is a critical component without which the Sukkah is powerless. It is the message of the walls. The walls demarcate the space of the Sukkah. Within these walls, you will access the holiness of the sechach. What is outside these walls belongs on the outside. Don’t bring that into the Sukkah. It doesn’t belong here. It is outside material. The Sukkah is defined by what’s inside.

What belongs on the outside? Anything that is not a product of your authentic self, your G-dly soul. Anger, resentment, fear, insecurity, grudges, greed, jealousy, bickering, all these must be left outside. The Sukkah envelops us in G-d’s loving embrace. Within these walls, the sechach stream Divine love. There is no place here for outside behavior and traits. There is no room in the Sukkah for anything unholy. Check it at the door. Leave it outside.

If you bring it into the Sukkah, you will compromise your Sukkah experience. Of course, the Sukkah won’t feel like a holy place of unity, delight, and bliss if you bring your anger and insecurities into the Sukkah. If you are disagreeable in the Sukkah, you won’t feel its unity. If you are angry in the Sukkah, you won’t feel its serenity. If you bring your silliness into the Sukkah, you won’t feel its holiness.

Heed the message of the Sukkah walls. A home can’t be a home if it is not first a house. A house is defined by its walls, which form a boundary. What belongs inside comes inside. What doesn’t belong inside, stays outside. Only when you have this demarcation can the inside become a home.

The same is true of the Sukkah’s walls. It keeps everything unholy and unpleasant at bay. Enter the Sukkah with your best angles. Put your best foot forward. Bring your festival demeanor and your A-game. That is how the Sukkah is transformed into a welcoming home of G-d, filled with warmth, nurture, and uplifting holiness.

Kicking Down Its Walls
This explains why the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 3a) tells us that when Mashiach comes, the nations will beg G-d for a Mitzvah. G-d will invite them to build a Sukkah. They will build it and sit in it. But when it gets hot, they will kick down its walls and leave. I understand why they will go. When it is too hot, we are exempt from sitting in the Sukkah. But why will they kick in the walls?

The heat of the Sukkah represents its warm and welcoming holiness. But when it gets too intense, it demands a price: the surrender of our indulgences and inclinations. This, the nations won’t like. They will not just leave the Sukkah; they will break down its walls, at which point it will be a Sukkah no more.

Don’t be like them. Respect the Sukkah’s walls. Only then will the Sukkah nourish your soul.[1]

[1] This essay is based on a teaching by Rabbi Shmuel Borenstein of Sochatchov, Shem Mishmuel, Sukkot 5680.