At the core of Sukkot is a mystery, a sacred riddle to which we return each year. We go to great lengths to build and dwell in these fragile, temporary structures, but it’s not always clear why. What is a sukkah? What is its purpose? The Torah tells us, "You shall dwell in booths for seven days" (Lev. 23:42), explaining, somewhat cryptically, that God caused our ancestors to dwell in sukkot after taking them out of Egypt. In trying to pin down the meaning and purpose of the sukkah, the rabbis of the Talmud disagree. Some offer a historical explanation, saying that the sukkah commemorates the tents in which our ancestors dwelt in the desert. Others prefer a more spiritual take, that the sukkah actually symbolizes the Clouds of Glory that surrounded and protected the Israelites in the desert (B. Sukkah 11b). The problem with both approaches, however, is that the Torah never refers to either of these phenomena – neither the Israelites’ desert dwellings nor the Clouds of Glory – as sukkot.
So if the sukkah symbolizes neither a temporary tent nor a godly cloud-container, what might it be? A hint, I think, might be found in an unlikely place: when scholars commissioned by King James VI of England in the early 1600’s translated the book of Leviticus into English, they rendered the word sukkot “tabernacles,” the same word that is used to describe the mishkan, the portable sanctuary the Israelites built to be a house for God’s imminent presence during their wilderness journey, as is indicated by the Hebrew word, whose root is “dwelling place.” That’s an interesting choice, considering it doesn’t reflect any of the classical Jewish interpretations upon which the authors of the King James Bible typically based their translations. What do sukkot have to do with the Mishkan?
According to Rabbanit Dena Freundlich, "a defining characteristic of the Mishkan was its temporary nature; it was frequently deconstructed to accompany the Children of Israel on their travels through the desert. In fact, it is referred to as the Ohel Moed, the Tent of Meeting, in contrast to its later, more permanent counterpart, the Beit HaMikdash, the House of Sanctity. Similarly, in order to be a kosher sukkah, it must be a temporary structure; if it is too permanent, it is in invalid (B. Sukkah 2a). In addition, Shemini Atzeret, the additional holiday that follows the seven days of Sukkot, is reminiscent of the inauguration ceremony for the Mishkan, [as] described in Leviticus, chapters 8-9.”
Rabbinical student Tadhg Cleary expands on this idea, noting that, according to the Talmud, “there is a mitzvah [a sacred obligation] to dwell in a sukkah both during the day and the night, by comparing the term used regarding Sukkot to the term used to describe [Aaron] and his sons dwelling in the Mishkan for seven days and nights before its inauguration (B. Sukkah 43b).” Moreover, Cleary adds that the requirements prescribed by tradition for building a sukkah resemble the instructions given in the Book of Exodus for constructing the Mishkan. Both sukkot and the Mishkan are, essentially, boxes with simple coverings spread over them. Indeed, even the Talmudic derivation of the sukkah’s minimum height is linked to the height of the Tabernacle (B. Sukkah 4b).
Cleary goes on to explain that the connection between the sukkah and the Mishkan helps us understand why sukkot comes immediately after Yom Kippur, rather than immediately after Pesah, which would be the natural placement for the holiday if the sukkah was meant to symbolize either the Israelites’ desert dwellings or the Clouds of Glory. From the Torah’s perspective, the purpose of Yom Kippur was to purify the Tabernacle, to cleanse it of the spiritual residue accumulated through a year’s worth of transgressions, “so that God’s presence could continue to manifest among the people of Israel.”
Even in the absence of a central shrine, each and every year we retell this purpose, through the Torah portion we read on Yom Kippur, and even re-enact it through the avodah, the liturgical depiction of the High Priest’s Yom Kippur Tabernacle rituals. If the sukkah symbolizes the Israelites’ desert dwellings or the Clouds of Glory, it would seemingly have no connection to the core meaning of Yom Kippur. Sukkot’s placement on the calendar therefore only makes sense if the sukkah is meant to symbolize the mishkan. In the days following Yom Kippur, once we are reassured that our world is once again fit for the Divine to dwell, each of us go back to our respective homes and there, we build a little tabernacle where we can let God in; a space where we, like the ancient High Priest, can connect and commune with the sacred, intimate presence of the Divine.
This understanding aligns with the research of modern biblical scholars, who point out that many aspects of ancient Israelite religion bear a striking resemblance to Ugaritic culture. Ugarit was an ancient city, located in modern day coastal Syria, that was destroyed in the 12th century BCE, which corresponds roughly with the period of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, according to the traditional Jewish chronology. Scholars suggest that the overlap between Ugarit’s rise and fall and our own tradition’s formative epoch helps explain the many obvious similarities between Ugaritic and Israelite practice; it’s quite likely that the older, more established, Ugaritic culture influenced the nascent Israelite religion.
And it turns out that ancient Ugarit had a practice remarkably similar to Sukkot: in the Ugaritic autumn month, which corresponds to Tishrei on the Hebrew calendar, there was a tradition of celebrating a seven day festival in connection with the Ugaritic New Year, which included repeating a sequence of sacrifices seven times, very similar to the Torah’s description of the cultic rites for Sukkot. Even more striking, on this holiday, the king was to make, on the roof of the royal palace, a dwelling made of branches, four on one side four on the other, for the gods.
The parallels between this practice and Sukkot are unmistakable, even if the Israelite tradition transforms it in two significant ways: first, in accordance with Israelite monotheism, the Torah substitutes the gods for God; and second, in accordance with its revolutionary egalitarian ethos, the Torah makes the building of these temporary structures for God the purview of every Israelite – indeed, even the stranger sojourning in our midst – and not just the king. But the function is similar – we seek to secure God’s blessings for the New Year by, at least symbolically, inviting God’s intimate, indwelling presence into our world.
And so, like our Ugaritic forebears, the Torah charges us, specifically at this auspicious time of the year, when we are most concerned about securing a blessed year, with the sacred service of building Sukkot – houses for God, whether on our roofs or in our backyards; not just the greatest among us, but all of us, sharing fully and equally in the responsibility of welcoming God’s presence into the world. In these small, impermanent shelters, we invite God to dwell with us. The sukkah is, in a powerful sense, meant to be a home for the Divine in the midst of our material and mortal world. Indeed, the haftarah portion for the second day of Sukkot describes the dedication ceremony for the first Temple in Jerusalem – which, not coincidentally, occurred during Sukkot – describing the shrine as “a stately house, a place where [God] may dwell forever” (I Kings 8:13).
But within this beautiful idea is also, I think, meant to be a powerful challenge to each and every one of us. Recall that, according to the Torah, every human being is infinitely and equally made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). So along with the commandment to build houses for God, our tradition is also encouraging us to stop and think about building houses for the countless millions of the images of God out there who are also homeless. If we are so meticulous in building Sukkot, shouldn’t we be equally eager to build homes for those who are made in God’s image — our fellow human beings? We spend time, energy, and resources constructing these symbolic shelters, but when it comes to the actual, permanent, homes that people need, we often fall short.
There is a profound disconnect here. In Judaism, housing is more than just a basic need — it is a human right, a reflection of the dignity inherent in every person, an idea that clearly influenced the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which also asserts that housing is a fundamental and inalienable human right. Rabbi Sharon Brous speaks of “the dignity of inestimable worth,” a phrase coined by Rabbi Yitz Greenberg. “Rabbi Greenberg asks his students to imagine the great care one would take with a precious work of art -- think of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi,' for example, which sold for hundreds of millions of dollars a few years ago. It would be unthinkable that we'd abandon such a piece outside our home, leaving it vulnerable to robbery, vandalism, wind, or rain. And yet we leave millions of human beings, each one worth far more than any piece of art, on the street, vulnerable to those same elements.” Rabbi Brous reflects on the fact that in her city, Los Angeles, “forty-two thousand images of God slept on the street last night,” which she aptly and powerfully calls, “a stain on our collective conscience" (Brous, The Amen Effect). And as we know, it’s not just LA: in many cities, unfortunately including our own, homelessness and housing insecurity have reached a crisis point, with too many families unable to afford safe and stable homes. If we believe that every human being is equally an image of the Divine, how can we abandon so many to live in conditions unworthy of that dignity?
And, importantly, both Jewish tradition and modern law insist that in general, securing human rights is a communal responsibility. Just as the right to freedom of religion requires legal structures and systems, as well as informal social norms, to support it, so too are laws and policies required to secure and safeguard every person’s right to a safe and stable home.
Yet too often, we resist the changes that would be necessary to our laws and norms to accomplish this. Even those of us who agree with the principle, resist the practice: everyone may have the right, we say, but that doesn’t mean we have the responsibility to ensure all can avail themselves of it; we may have the responsibility to secure the right for all, but we also reserve our own right to dictate that the affordable housing shouldn’t be built in our neighborhoods, or in our backyards. Everyone may have the right to housing in principle, but in practice, think what it would do to my property value!
There is a midrash from Genesis Rabbah that feels particularly relevant here. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi once traveled to Rome, where he saw two marble columns covered in bedding, so they would neither crack in the heat nor freeze in the cold. Meanwhile, he also saw a pauper lying on the street with only a reed mat for protection from the elements. This striking contrast — between the care given to inanimate objects and the neglect of human beings—is a powerful reminder of the moral stakes of this issue. (Genesis Rabbah 33:1)
Another Rabbinic text declares that every person is accompanied, at all times, by a procession of angels crying out, 'Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching!' Every person, like royalty. And yet, as Rabbi Brous points out, “again and again, the image of the Holy One is controlled and contained, humiliated and degraded, incarcerated and incapacitated, shot and killed before our very eyes. How do we keep missing all those angels, with their trumpets and proclamations, desperate to rouse us to the dignity of every human being?” This, Rabbi Brous argues, is not an “abstract theological claim,” but rather “a genuine moral imperative: What would it mean to build a society in which every person is treated as an image of the Divine? How would this affect our relationships with our neighbors, our coworkers, the stranger lying beneath the stained blankets and trash outside Starbucks?" (Brous, 53-54).
If we are to take the lessons of Sukkot seriously – that if we are to build sacred spaces for God, we must also be equally committed to doing so for those created in God’s image — then the works of our hands must match the meditations of our hearts. That means advocating for policies that prioritize, fund, and incentivize the building of affordable housing; challenging local zoning laws that make it difficult to build housing that is accessible to all; and supporting and partnering with organizations that are on the frontlines of the sacred work of ensuring that everyone has a place to call home.
Imagine what we could accomplish if we took the lessons of the sukkah seriously. If we truly believed that every person is deserving of a home as sacred as the sukkah—a space where God's presence dwells—then our city, our country, indeed our world, would look very different.
This Sukkot, as we sit in our fragile, temporary shelters, let us commit to building something more lasting. Let us build homes not only for God, but for all our fellow images of God. Let us build a world in which every person has a place to dwell in dignity and safety. And when every single one of God’s images is safely and sacredly housed, then we will have built a world fit for the full and permanent dwelling of God’s presence; then will we merit a world suffused with Divine blessing, a world repaired and redeemed.
So may it be God’s will. Amen.
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