September 24, 2026|י"ג תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ז Sukkot: What is Really Ours? By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Every Jewish holiday has its own distinctive mitzvot and mitzvah objects. Rosh Hashanah has the shofar. Chanukah has the menorah. Purim has the Megillah. Shavuot has... cheesecake. Okay, we may need to work on that one.

But Sukkot is different. It has two primary mitzvah objects: the sukkah and the arba minim.

Why?

Do these two mitzvot represent two different themes of Sukkot? Or do they express two sides of one larger idea?

Rav Yaakov Medan and Rabbi Menachem Leibtag offer an interesting approach. Sukkot is unique because it is the conclusion of two different holiday cycles.

On the one hand, Sukkot is one of the Shalosh Regalim, alongside Pesach and Shavuot. These holidays look backward. Pesach recalls the Exodus. Shavuot recalls the giving of the Torah. Sukkot recalls how God protected us in the wilderness.

On the other hand, Sukkot is the culmination of the Chagei Tishrei. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur look forward, asking God to grant us a good year. For a farmer, one of the most fundamental requests for the coming year is rain.

According to this approach, the two mitzvah objects reflect these two dimensions.

The sukkah looks backward. We sit in a sukkah to remember how God protected us in the wilderness.

The arba minim look forward. We take agricultural species and wave them before God as part of our prayer for rain and agricultural blessing in the coming year.

But perhaps there is another way to understand the relationship between these two mitzvot.

Perhaps they are not two different themes at all.

Perhaps they represent two sides of the same theme: our relationship with the world God has given us.

Consider two striking differences between the sukkah and the arba minim.

What Do We Do With the Materials?

Think about the quality of the mitzvah objects.

When it comes to the arba minim, there is an extraordinary emphasis on beauty.

The Torah calls the etrog “pri etz hadar,” a beautiful fruit. The Gemara's discussion of hiddur mitzvah, the obligation to beautify a mitzvah, is developed in the context of the arba minim.

When we take the lulav and etrog, we look for the best.

The sukkah, however, is almost the opposite.

The Torah says:

“Chag haSukkot ta'aseh lecha shivat yamim b'aspecha migornecha umiyikvecha.”

“You shall make the festival of Sukkot for seven days when you gather from your threshing floor and your winepress.”

Why does the Torah mention the threshing floor and winepress?

Rashi, quoting the Gemara in Sukkah, explains:

“Lamed shemesachchin et hasukkah bepissolet goren v'yekev.”

It teaches that the sukkah is covered with the remnants of the threshing floor and winepress.

Think about what that means.

You grow your crops. You harvest the grain. You thresh it. You press your grapes.

And then you are left with what has been discarded.

The Torah tells us to take those remnants and use them for our sukkah.

The defining feature of the sukkah, the schach, is made from what otherwise has little value.

So we have a fascinating contrast.

With the arba minim, we take what is beautiful.

With the sukkah, we take what has been discarded.

What Is Ours?

There is another difference.

On the first day of Sukkot, the Torah requires that the arba minim be “lachem,” meaning they must belong to you.

A borrowed lulav does not fulfill the mitzvah on the first day.

The sukkah is different.

The Torah says:

“Basukkot teishvu shivat yamim.”

“You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days.”

There is no requirement that the sukkah belong to you. You can fulfill the mitzvah by sitting in someone else's sukkah.

So again, the contrast is striking.

The arba minim must be beautiful, and they must be yours.

The sukkah does not need to be yours, and its defining material can be the leftovers of your harvest.

Why?

Perhaps the answer lies in understanding what Sukkot is really trying to teach us about our relationship with God and with the world.

In other words, the arba minim are about what we do with the world, while the sukkah is about remembering whose world it is.

Chag HaAsif Becomes Chag HaSukkot

The Meshech Chochmah points to a fascinating distinction in the Torah.

In Parshat Mishpatim, Sukkot is called “Chag HaAsif,” the festival of gathering.

But later, in Parshat Re'eh, it is called “Chag HaSukkot,” the festival of Sukkot.

Why the change?

The Meshech Chochmah explains that something happened in between.

Originally, Sukkot was fundamentally Chag HaAsif, a celebration of the agricultural harvest. We gather the bounty that God has given us and thank Him for it.

But after the sin of the Golden Calf, the Ananei HaKavod, the Clouds of Glory, departed from the Jewish people. According to Chazal, they returned on the fifteenth of Tishrei.

Sukkot therefore became more than a celebration of what God had given us. It became a celebration of God's presence with us.

It was no longer merely Chag HaAsif.

It became Chag HaSukkot.

And that may help us understand the two mitzvot.

We Are Given a World and Asked to Do Something With It

There is a famous Midrash Tanchuma describing the debate between Rabbi Akiva and the Roman governor Turnus Rufus.

Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva: If God wants human beings to be circumcised, why doesn't He create people that way?

Rabbi Akiva responded by asking him to bring wheat.

Then he asked him to bring bread.

“Which do you prefer?” Rabbi Akiva asked. “The wheat or the bread?”

“Of course, the bread.”

Rabbi Akiva's response demonstrates something fundamental. God gives us raw materials, but He expects us to develop them.

God gives us wheat.

We make bread.

God gives us the world.

We are asked to build, create, develop, and improve it.

That is one dimension of the arba minim.

The arba minim come from the natural world. They are agricultural products. Yet we are commanded to take them, select them, beautify them, and make them into a mitzvah object.

We don't simply receive God's world.

We participate in it.

The requirement of “lachem” expresses that responsibility.

Make it yours.

Take responsibility.

Build something.

Create something.

Become a partner with God in developing His world.

But We Are Not the Owners

And then comes the sukkah.

The sukkah reminds us that everything we have is temporary.

We leave our permanent homes and move into a temporary structure.

The sukkah does not have to belong to us. Its roof can be made from the remnants of the harvest.

We sit underneath it and recognize that even the things we think we possess are ultimately gifts entrusted to us by God.

Our homes are temporary.

Our possessions are temporary.

Even our wealth and accomplishments are temporary.

We cannot take them with us.

And this brings the two mitzvot together.

The arba minim tell us:

Take responsibility for the world.

The sukkah tells us:

Remember that you do not ultimately own it.

These are not contradictory messages. They are both necessary.

Judaism does not ask us to withdraw from the world. We are expected to work, create, build, improve, and contribute.

But we must never confuse our ability to shape the world with ownership of the world.

We are partners, not owners.

What Is Really Ours?

Perhaps this is also what gives Sukkot its connection to Zman Simchateinu, the time of our joy.

There is happiness in receiving. We gather the harvest, recognize God's blessings, and say thank you.

But there is another kind of happiness. The happiness of having built something. Of having helped someone. Of having taught someone. Of having created something meaningful. Of having made another person's life a little better.

That is the happiness of knowing that we have not simply received from the world. We have contributed to it.

The arba minim teach us to be partners. God gives us the raw materials, and He asks us to develop them, beautify them, and use them to make a difference.

The sukkah teaches us to remain humble partners. Everything we have ultimately belongs to God, and everything we build exists only because He gave us the opportunity to build it.

We are responsible for what we do with God's world. But we never become its owners.

And perhaps that is the deeper meaning of Zman Simchateinu: recognizing both the gift we have received and the privilege of what we can do with it.