Sermon: Sukkot: Let God do the DIY

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 2 October 2012

I have always loved being part of building someone else’s Sukkah, the Sukkah at Synagogue or the Sukkah in someone else’s back garden.  I can thread laurel through trellis, I can place flowers on poles, I can bag up fruit and hang it from the ceiling.  But as our daughters Alice and Miriam began to grow up I decided that this was just not good enough.

 

No it was now time to build a Sukkah for my own family in our own back garden.   I should tell you that the person who does DIY in our household is not me but my wife Nicola, it is one of the reasons why I am not overly concerned for her welfare for the three months that I am in Cape Town at Temple Israel.  She can put up shelves that are straight, build furniture, repair and decorate walls and all kinds of impressive things.  But since it was my decision to build our own Sukkah I was determined to at least make the basic structure myself.

 

It didn’t go well.  My first year’s attempt with bamboo poles leaning off a fence lasted barely three days before coming apart.  For three years I used the klutz’s get out – a pop up Sukkah made of canvas bought from the London Sukkah Mart – then this began to deteriorate to the extent that no one was willing to sit in it.  Finally I hit upon Sukkah Mark 3 – this used a recent purchase as the basic structural component – a sturdy garden bench – two poles strapped to the bench – some rather natty ball shaped joints with holes through which I could thread other supporting poles – lots of string, lots of commitment, lots of hope – and wow – for a whole week it stood up.  My design served us well for a few years – until Nicola who is also a very keen gardener used the poles to support bean and pea plants which were still producing vegetables at the time of Sukkot and the design had to be rethought – with little success.

 

Still I had the satisfaction of knowing that I have tried to fulfil the Mitzvah done by our ancestors at least back to the times of Mishnah Sukkot, 1800 years ago.  The mitzvah is to build a Sukkah at least 1.1 meters high and no higher than 10 meters (as if I could get a 30 foot tall structure to stand up).  However if you look closely at the text in Leviticus 23 from which the command to build a Sukkah is derived it appears that perhaps I might have saved myself all of the bother – and let God do it.

 

What does it actually say in the text which we take as our basis for the mitzvah of building and dwelling in a Sukkah?  “You shall dwell in Succot (which we are used to translating as booths) seven days; all who are Israelites born shall dwell in booths;  That your generations may know that I made the people of Israel to dwell in Succot, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.”  (Leviticus 23:42-43)

 

Seems clear?  Well if Succot actually means booths made out of temporary materials and leaves and fruit then where are they in the account of the Exodus from Egypt in the Books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?  If you look there to find what the Children of Israel actually used as shelter you will find that it’s a tent.  (Eg Exodus 16:16, Numbers 1:52, Deuteronomy 1:27 et al!) a family ohel – presumably just like you can see to this day used by traditional Bedouin who are still desert nomads.   As I always wondered, where exactly in the desert would you find enough wood and leafy covering to make anything like the Succahs we dwell in?

 

So when Rabbis Akiva and Eliezer in the early second century came to interpret (in Sifra) the text which tells us to dwell in Succot on this festival, Rabbi Eliezer said yes, when we came out of Egypt God made us live in booths like the ones we construct now for our festival but Rabbi Akiva disagreed and said no – what God made us to dwell in were Ananei Ha Cavod, Clouds of Divine Glory.  God wouldn’t have given his redeemed people rickety huts, not when Clouds of Divine Glory were available.  When Onkelos came to translate the Torah into Aramaic in the first century he had also said that Sukkot were Clouds of Divine Glory, so Akiva was building on an established tradition.  So too Rashi in the tenth Century explains the kind of Sukkah’s that God made for us as Annanei Ha Cavod.

 

So – let’s forget for a moment all the hard work that went into making our beautiful Sukkahs at Alyth and Temple Israel or, if you built one yourself, all the work that you expended.  What would these clouds of glory be like if that is what our Sukkot were made from?  These are the clouds which, in the instant that Israel came out of Egypt protected them in the desert (Exodus 13:21)  by day.  These are the clouds which signal that God is in the midst of the people of Israel obscuring them from being seen by the troops of Pharoah pursuing after them (Exodus 14:20) just before they crossed the Red Sea.  These are the clouds which settled on Mount Sinai as the Ten Commandments were about to be given.  They are the clouds which entered the Mishcan, the Israelite’s desert Temple, to dedicate it and to show that the Shechinah, God’s presence was there.  These are perhaps the clouds upon which in a young child’s view of God, God as an elder floats keeping watch over us.

 

In a passage in third century Toseftah (Sotah 4) which brings the directions in which we wave the Lulav, the hospitality implied in our Sukkot to the Ushpizin, the imaginary guests Jews traditionally welcome to our Sukkah all together with the image of the divine clouds – these clouds began to appear above, behind, in front and in all directions around Abraham as a recognition of the hospitality that he had shown to God’s messengers in his tent.  They are the clouds of God’s protective glory which we actually imply in every evening service when we ask for a “tabernacle of peace” “a shelter of peace”, a Succat Shalom to descend upon us in the Haschiveinu prayer just after the Shema is read.

 

But there is a problem with Divine Clouds of Glory.  We are commanded to dwell in them over the festival of Sukkot.  If Jews with their questionable DIY skills have such trouble builing a simple booth how would we have a hope of summoning Divine clouds to our homes and Synagogues?  At a very early stage Judaism went with Rabbi Eliezer and said that on Sukkot we cannot expect Divine Clouds of Glory, the ultimate home to appear for us, rather we should go to the other extreme and dwell in the simplest, most rickety, most temporary structure – something we can throw up in any place, in any field, in any garden, on any balcony, from any material – in inadequate yet sincere imitation of God, and we must create it specially for the festival.  What better than to imitate the simple field huts built by farmers for millennia at the time of the harvest so that the work of gathering need not stop.  After all this is a harvest festival.

 

So we build the Sukkah, we do not wait for Divine Clouds of Glory – just like we Jews are required to repair the world, we do not wait for God to come and do it.  We symbolise plenty in our Sukkot with the fruit and vegetables we hang and take from this our duty to feed the hungry.  We make our Sukkot as beautiful as we can with decorations made by all generations and take from this our duty to keep the world beautiful, to preserve it and not to degrade it.  We make our Sukkot good enough to give shelter but flimsy enough that we feel the precariousness of what it would be like to live without a permanent home – and we take from this our duty to give shelter to the homeless, to reach out the hand of friendship and support to the dispossessed and to help people who are feeling the cold of winter.  (Our Synagogue council at Alyth will tonight be voting on whether to join other Synagogues and Churches to open our building as a shelter for a night a week in the depths of winter to those who would otherwise be sleeping on the streets locally.  May the lesson of Succot guide them in their decision.)

 

We cannot make Clouds of Glory, if this is what was intended by our Torah for this festival.  We can make a Sukkah that is beautiful and teaches us what it means to celebrate, to give and the need to provide shelter.  As we attempt to imitate God may our Sukkot inspire us for the year ahead to care and to share.