One Friday night my neighborhood experienced a blackout. As we made our way home from the synagogue, we speculated on how much of the neighborhood was affected, when the lights would come back on and how best to serve undercooked, lukewarm cholent. One in our group commented on the serenity of the moment, and said with a wistful sigh: "This is how it used to be, just the soft moonlight." This prompted my reply: "We didn't like it the way it used to be, that's why we invented lights!"
Judaism is forward thinking, eager to embrace innovation and fresh perspective. We are single minded in our focus to improve the world, shepherd it to its destination. We check the rear view mirror for guidance, but never dwell on "what used to be." Even our remembrances are designed to provide us with perspective on how to deal with the present and the future. So how does the concept of abandoning our homes and living in thatched huts, as we did 3,300 years ago, jive with this idea?
When the Torah commands us to live in sukkot (temporary huts) to commemorate our experience in the wilderness, it seems to suggest that we recreate that existence. Yet dwelling in those huts was not a destination, but merely a temporary situation, on our way to the Holy Land. So why reenact it?
Invincibility has a cousin named laziness, which spends his whole day thinking about what he won't be doing. But perhaps the holiday of Sukkot is not about returning to "simpler, more primitive times." Maybe Sukkot is in fact the ultimate progression, a leap forward to somewhere one otherwise would never have reached. When we stay right where we are, in the groove of a (healthy) routine we face the danger of stagnation.
The Sukkah compels us to move on, to get off the hammock and onto the journey of making this world a more G‑dly place. Bereft of the security of our homes we are faced with our responsibility to accomplish more. The temporal sukkah reminds us of the temporal nature of material things. A sad lesson of hurricanes, wildfires and 9/11 is that castles made of stone vanish. The comfort our homes provide should never be confused with invincibility – and that is a good thing. For invincibility has a cousin named laziness, which spends his whole day thinking about what he won't be doing. The sukkah reminds us of our obligation to move on, to get out there and enrich the world around us.
Sitting in the vulnerability of the sukkah, we have the opportunity to experience the security only G‑d can offer, something that brick and mortar can't provide. This is progress, a leap we would never embark upon without compulsion--and could never attain without the message of the sukkah.
So when you're sitting in the sukkah, think of yourself as modern and hip, and not an old-fashioned curmudgeon - though that slang only bespeaks your age.
Oh, yeah. And ditch the bell bottoms, they're not groovy anymore.
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