A few days ago we stood in shul and begged to be written for life. We fasted, we cried, we meant every word. And now, almost before the fast is fully out of us, we’re told to go outside, build a flimsy little hut with gaps in the roof, and be happy.

It’s strange choreography. From the holiest, heaviest day of the year, straight out into a shaky booth in the backyard. But I’ve come to think it’s one of the wisest turns on the whole calendar.

The most fragile house we build all year

A sukkah is, by design, barely a building. The walls can shake. The roof has to have holes in it, real gaps we can see the stars through. If it’s too solid, too sealed, too permanent, it isn’t kosher. The one hard requirement is that it not be too sturdy.

Think about that. Every other structure we build, we want strong. Storm-proof. Sealed against the weather. The sukkah is the one home we’re commanded to build knowing it can’t fully protect us, and then to move into it, and to call those seven days our season of joy.

Because the sukkah tells the truth about every house we live in. We spend so much of our lives trying to build something that can’t be shaken, the secure job, the sealed-up life, the roof with no gaps. And then a phone call comes, or a diagnosis, or a loss, and we find out what we half-knew all along. None of our roofs were ever as solid as we told ourselves.

The sukkah says: stop pretending. Come sit in something honest for a week. Something with holes in it, like your actual........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)