October 2, 2023|י"ז תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ד Lulav vs. Sukkah: What do we really own in this world? By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

There’s a well-known story of a young monk who joins a monastery. He is assigned to the task of helping his fellow monks copy by hand the institution’s most sacred documents. He notices, though, that the texts they are copying are themselves copies as opposed to original manuscripts. So he innocently approaches the head abbot and poses his question. The senior monk carefully considers the issue. "We have been copying from these copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son." So, he descends into the subterranean archives of the monastery where the original manuscripts are held and secludes himself down below. Wondering what’s happened, the young monk makes his way into the archive in search of his teacher. In the corner of the room, he spots the older monk. He’s poring over an ancient text and he’s crying. "We missed the "R", he says, We missed the "R". The young monk is at a loss. “What’s wrong, father?” he says. With a choking voice, the old abbot looks up, "The word was Celebrate!”

Baruch Hashem, we are here together celebrating Sukkot. And we celebrate each holiday with unique mitzvot and unique mitzva objects. When we think of unique holiday mitzvah objects, we generally think of one mitzvah object per holiday. Rosh Hashana – shofar. Chanuka – menorah. Purim – megillah. Shavuot – cheesecake. Okay, we need to work on Shavuot. But what about Sukkot? Sukkot has two mitzvah objects – the arba minim and the sukkah. And I wonder why. Why two primary mitzvah objects? Do these two mitzvah objects reflect two different themes on Sukkot or do they reflect the complexity of a singular theme of Sukkot? I have read an approach by Rav Medan and Rav Leibtag that the holiday of Sukkot is the end of two holiday cycles, the shalosh regalim and the holidays of Tishrei, so one mitzva object, the sukkah celebrates the holiday as one of the shalosh regalim and the arba minim celebrate the holiday as one of the chagei Tishrei.  Shalosh regalim are backward looking and we engage in mitzvot to thank God for taking us out of Egypt, for giving us the Torah and for protecting us in the desert, while Chagei Tishrei are forward learning and we engage in mitzvot to pray to God for a good year and when you’re a farmer, that means rain. We celebrate the shalosh regalim aspect of Sukkot by living in a sukkah to thank God for protecting us in the desert and we celebrate the chagei Tishrei aspect of Sukkot by waving agricultural species as a prayer to ask God for rain so that our crops can grow in the coming year. This approach suggests that sukkah and lulav reflect two different themes of Sukkot.

But what if they reflect the complexity of a singular theme of Sukkot? Let me point out two differences between the halachot of sukkah and lulav, let’s learn a comment from the Meshech Chochmah and we will see if we can develop a singular theme that these two mitzvot represent.  

Difference number one: the quality of each mitzvah object. How much does a sukkah cost and how much does a set of arba minim cost? I looked on Amazon and there an easy to build sukkah from the The SukkahSpot for $599 and it’s only $449 if you order an Amazon Business Prime Card along with this purchase.  The priciest lulav and etrog set that our shul sold was a muvchar set plus alef alef hadassim plus a Deri lulav plus a zippered lulav bag which totals $172. So the sukkah costs more than the lulav. However, we care much more about the quality of the arba minim than the quality of the sukkah. Among the arba minim we must take the best, pri etz hadar, a beautiful fruit, an etrog, and the Talmudic discussion of hiddur mitzvah and zeh keli v’anvehu, of beautifying mitzvot in general, takes place in connection with the mitvah of arba minim. When we perform the mitzvah of lulav and etrog, we take our best.

Contrast that with the sukkah, because when it comes to the sukkah, we are actually commanded to take our worst. The Torah states, “chag ha-Sukkot ta-aseh lecha shiv-at yamim b-asp’cha mi-garnecha u-mi-yikvecha” – make for yourselves a festival of Sukkot for seven days with what you’ve gathered from your threshing floor and your winepress. I understand the first half of the verse, that we should make a holiday of Sukkot for seven days, but what does the Torah mean when it mentions “mi-garnecha u-mi-yikvecha” – from your threshing floor and your winepress?

Says Rashi (Devarim 16:13), citing the Gemara in Masechet Sukkah (12a), “lamed” – it teaches us – “she-m’sach’chin et ha-sukkah bi-psolet goren v’yakev” – that we cover our sukkah with the remnants of our threshing floor and our winepress. Do you understand what that means? It means that we grow our crops and we grow our grapes. We then harvest and thresh the grain on a threshing floor and we press the grapes in a winepress, and out comes stalks of grain and tasty wine. Now there’s some chaff, some leftover grain, essentially some garbage grain that wasn’t threshed and some leftover grapes that weren’t pressed. What should I do with the garbage grain and garbage grapes? Throw it out in the trash can, right? No! Here comes the Torah and says that we should use this garbage, this chaff, this throwaway grain, as schach for the sukkah! The Torah tells us to take our garbage and build a hut for God and use the garbage for the schach, for the roof, which is the defining feature of the sukkah. In sum, difference number one: arba minim – use your best materials, sukkah – use your worst materials.

Difference number two: Ownership. On the first day of Sukkot, when there is a Torah obligation to wave the lulav, there is a requirement of “lachem,” that you must own the arba minim. You cannot fulfill the mitzvah with a borrowed lulav. However, there is no such requirement with respect to the sukkah. The Torah states, “ba-sukkot taishvu.” All we are required to do is to live in a sukkah. 

There you have it – two differences. The arba minim must belong to you and must be beautiful, whereas the sukkah need not be yours and the schach should come from your garbage.

Now let’s learn the comment from the Meshech Chochmah. The Meshech Chochmah notes the fact that in Parshat Mishpatim, the holiday of Sukkot is called “chag ha-asif,” the holiday of gathering. However, in Parshat R’ey, the holiday is called “Chag ha-sukkot.” He explains that the holiday was transformed after the sin of the golden calf. First, it was merely a holiday to celebrate a time when we gathered our crops and we give thanks to God for our bounty. However, after the sin of the golden calf, the ananei ha-kavod, the clouds of glory, departed from the Bnei Yisrael. When did they return? On the fifteenth of Tishrei. The holiday of Sukkot celebrates the return of the ananei ha-kavod to the Bnei Yisrael. Chag ha-asif then became chag ha-sukkot.

Sukkot is more than simply a chag ha-asif, a time to simply thank God for our bounty. It is time of chag ha-sukkot, when we celebrate our relationship with God in this world, what it means to live a divine life sensing God’s presence all around us like the anan ka-kavod. What’s the problem? No anan ha-kavod nowadays. No overt miracles. So how do we do it? How do we celebrate not just chag ha-asif, but chag ha-sukkot? The answer is that we develop an intimate relationship with God and sense His presence by partnering with Him. How? Through the mitzva of arba minim and the mitzvah of sukkah.

There’s a famous Midrash Tanchuma (Tazria, 5) that describes the encounter between the Roman governor Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva. Turnus Rufus asked R. Akiva, “If God wanted man to be circumcised, then why did He not create him that way?” R. Akiva responded, “Bring me some wheat.”  Then he said, “Bring me a loaf of bread.”  He asked, “Which do you prefer to eat, the bread of the wheat?” “Naturally, the bread,” Turnus Rufus replied.  Rabbi Akiva retorted, “Do you not see now that the works of flesh and blood are more pleasant than those of God?” Now that’s a pretty bold statement, but that is God’s mandate to us. Turn wheat into bread. 

That mandate is the arba minim, four different types of agricultural species. The arba minim represent nature. The arba minim are beautiful.  Pri etz hadar. God’s mandate is to appreciate the beauty in the world and transform it. Make it yours – “lachem” – the arba minim must be yours because to be a Divine partner means to take ownership of the world. Develop. Build. Create.

But what is ownership at the end of the day? Our possessions are not really ours. The sukkah, our homes, our belongings, that which we think is ours, need not be “lachem,” need not be ours, because the point of the sukkah is that it highlights the fact that our homes are only on loan from God and we can’t take them with us when we die. And what we own or what we think we own, is only p’solet goren v’yekev, the remnants of our threshing floor and winepresses. What we own is not really beautiful and is not really ours. We can’t take our possessions with us when we die. The only thing that we can take with us when we die is what we’ve created, what we’ve developed, how we’ve manipulated the world, how we’ve shaped the world, how we have left the world a better place.

We all know that, yes, we are happy when we receive a gift, and for that we celebrate chag ha-asif, but compare that to our happiness when we worked, when we did something good, when we did something productive, when we made a difference in someone’s life. That is true simcha! When we appreciate tension between the arba minim and the sukkah, what we contribute to this world and what we own, and we realize what is truly beautiful and what is truly ours, then we can truly appreciate why the holiday of Sukkot is, indeed, zman simchateinu, a time of happiness.