Sukkot 5787

The Torah commands us to live in a sukkah so that we remember the wilderness, but the Sages disagreed about what the sukkah represents. Rabbi Eliezer saw it as the miraculous Clouds of Glory that protected Israel, while Rabbi Akiva saw it as actual, fragile huts. For Rabbi Akiva, the significance is not God's miraculous protection, but Israel's willingness to follow Him into uncertainty.

Jeremiah captures this beautifully when God says, “I remember the loving-kindness of your youth… how you followed Me in the wilderness.” Israel left Egypt without knowing where it was going, trusting God enough to enter “a land not sown.” The sukkah therefore becomes a symbol of Israel's faith: not certainty or security, but the courage to follow despite uncertainty.

That meaning became even more powerful through Jewish history, when Jews themselves lived for centuries in conditions of insecurity and exile. Yet Sukkot remained zeman simchateinu, the season of our joy: we leave our secure homes, sit beneath a fragile roof, and rejoice. The sukkah teaches that faith does not remove uncertainty; it teaches us how to live with it without surrendering our joy.

The ideas are shaped and based on the work of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, and influenced by Maimonides, Nachmanides, Don Isaac Abarbanel, Samson Raphael Hirsch, David Zvi Hoffmann, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, and Uri Amos Cherki.