What is the Point of Sukkot?
Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 11 October 2022
What is the point of Sukkot?
What does Sukkot demand of us?
One might very well ask, particularly after all the soul searching and spiritual (and real, literal) work we did over Yom Kippur. Surely, we deserve a break? But no, we are thrown back into the Jewish calendar cycle without so much as a breath in between.
So, it is understandable to set the bar quite high for finding a purpose to this continuation of the demand on our lives that Sukkot exerts. Not only to celebrate another festival, but to go to the effort of going out and finding or buying our arba minim (the four species) and build a temporary house, and then decorate it, and sit in it regardless of the cold noch!
There better be a good reason for it.
Well, as Rabbi John Rayner said in a Sukkot sermon back in 1983: ‘there’s a difference between the “real” reason and the “good” reason for anything.’ He says that the real, original, reason for building the sukkah has been lost to time – but that does not stop us from finding good reasons to continue to do it.
Already, two thousand years ago, thinkers were trying to find those good reasons.
According to the ancient Jewish philosopher, Philo, the purpose of the sukkah is to remind us that ‘it is well in wealth to remember our poverty, in distinction your insignificance, in high office your position as a commoner, in peace your dangers in war, on land the storms at sea, in cities the life of loneliness.’
Similarly, in his Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides says: ‘The moral lesson derived from these feasts is this: we ought to remember our evil days in our days of prosperity. We will thereby be induced to thank God repeatedly, to lead a modest and humble life … we leave our houses in order to dwell in makeshift shelters, as inhabitants of deserts do that are in want of comfort. We shall thereby remember that such was once our condition.’
The point, then, of the sukkah is as an interruption – a puncturing of our complacency – a reminder that, not only was this our life, wandering in the wilderness, but it so easily could be again, and very little separates us from a return to that condition.
Similarly, we are told repeatedly in the Torah of our responsibility to strangers – because we ourselves were strangers in the Land of Egypt. The Rabbis of the Talmud disagree on whether this appears 36 times or 46 times in the Torah. The point it, it’s a lot. Again, this is not simply a reminder to be grateful because of the conditions from which we, as a nation, have come. It is also an acknowledgement that it could so easily be us.
And the sukkah is not just a reminder for us; it is about how we live in society and in community with others. For the point is not to build a beautiful sukkah, but to bring others into it – our ushpizin whom we are commanded to invite in to share the space with us. The transience and flimsiness of our temporary dwellings reminds us of the importance of sharing the little with have in the time that is given to us.
As we contemplate the cost-of-living crisis in which our country finds itself, this reminder of our responsibility to others is unusually urgent.
I spoke at Yom Kippur about our newly-launched Membership Support Fund. No one should be faced with the prospect of having to leave the community because they feel they cannot afford it. We are asking members who feel that they can afford it to pay into the fund in order that others who can afford less are able to remain part of the community. Doing so relies on the same kind of empathy as the command not to oppress the stranger – the recognition that, if we were in the same situation, we would want to avail ourselves of the same opportunity.
The cost-of-living crisis has also laid bare many of the effects of inequality in our society – the reality that we see every day of the wealthy living alongside those who are struggling just to make ends meet.
Stats from the Social Mobility Commission:
79% of adults in the UK believe that there is a large gap between social classes.
56% believe the pandemic has increased social inequality.
And it is this sense of the barriers created by inequality, regardless of the reality, that can hold people back. If there is not the sense that a better world is within reach it may simply be that people give up on it.
As well as being the first day of Sukkot, today is Mental Health Awareness Day – and more and more we are becoming aware of how mental health outcomes are tied to inequality in our society.
And it is not just about funding the NHS. Generally, poverty is bad for both our physical and our mental health – in our homes as well as in our hospitals.
Cold homes are bad for mental health. With the cost of energy rising, it is easy to see how many will suffer.
Sukkot, and our Jewish tradition more broadly, demands of us that we put ourselves in the position of the least well-off and most alienated in our society, to consider their sense of self-respect and their dignity. These things are affected by poverty – whether absolute or relative.
Our member, Michael Marmot, who has become one of the UK’s foremost campaigners for health equality, writing in 2012: ‘having enough money for a healthy life is more than food and shelter: it includes enough to lead a life of dignity and to take one’s place in society. If an older person has insufficient income to buy presents for their grandchildren they cannot lead a life of dignity.’
By demanding that we invite guests into our sukkah, our tradition is reminding us of our responsibility to others – to those who do not have the privileges we have – who support from wider society and from their community in order to regain that dignity of which Michael Marmot writes.
A final thing that Sukkot demands of us. And this is perhaps most important following our sense of triumph and strength that we might have felt at completing Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur. And that is humility.
‘Remember the Eternal in the days of your youth’ says Kohelet.
That is the point of Sukkot – to remember to be mindful to these demands.
Let us remember. Let us remember our poverty in the midst of our wealth – how easily it could be us again in that situation.
Let us remember those who do actually find themselves in that situation of precariousness, and let us find humility not to judge.
Let us remember humility – that our strength is ultimately insignificant and so we should make the most of it while we have it, to share it with others and bring them into our sukkot.