Opinion & Comment
The Succa: View Platform on the World Outside and the Nefesh Inside

What the Eyes See, the Heart Desires

One of the parables of the Be'er Mayim Chaim is a story of a king who wanted to throw his inner chamber open to the public and personally receive those who came. At the same time, he didn't want riffraff or people who weren't serious. So he set up the route to his chamber through a series of outer chambers. Each chamber was to contain an exhibition or feature display. As a person advanced from chamber to chamber, the next chamber was to be more eye-catching and fascinating than the previous.

For example -- as we may imagine -- the first chamber, intended to capture the imagination of the riffraff, had an exhibition on the history of sport in his country since the Second World War. The second showed a repeating video. The third -- for the empty-headed -- featured the royal clothes collection. The fourth offered an orchestra playing classic symphonies. And so on.

The public was to be allowed one day inside the palace. By evening, the opportunity to take tea with the monarch and bask in his glory would be over. The king was very pleased with the result. The riffraff spent the whole day in the first two chambers. And the nonserious couldn't part with the enjoyment to be had from chambers 3, 4 and 5.

The king only had to receive a handful of people. He asked two of them how they managed to make it to his room. The first said: "Yes. I was enjoying the displays. But by 3 in the afternoon I said to myself, `Hold on. At this rate, I think you're not going to make it.' So I just closed my eyes and marched through."

Another said, "Look, Your Majesty. I realized a long time ago: time is the enemy. If you want to dream in life, go to bed early on a comfortable mattress. So I just entered and kept on going."

Forward Go

The life Hashem has given us is a series of mitzvos. In truth, a person should spend all his time going from one mitzvah to the next. But he has the option of putting them off or ignoring them and wasting time.

Why should he do this? Because he's sidelined by the distractions. He can't resist an hour-and-a-half reading the newspaper or finding out what his friend's friend from LA is doing. A woman decides she lacks cupboards; but she is not prepared to use plain plywood. She needs pine with inlaid black-and-gold panels. Otherwise she just won't be happy. And this forces her husband to work longer to pay the difference instead of going to the beis hamedrash earlier.

This is one of the main messages of Succos. No one denies this is a material world. But walk out of that material world, where materialism is so easily perceived as an end in itself, and enter a world where it is clear that materialism is only a means to an end and the real object is spirituality. Thus the floor, walls and schach of the succa are really the Shechinah and the clouds of glory.

Moreover, as the old saying goes: "Go into the succa with your boots on, too."

Even if you've managed to cover your boots with mud, even if you are more sidetracked by materialism than you should be, go into the succa. There you will have the opportunity to see the material- spiritual balance in proper perspective.

Body and Soul

This was the walls and the roof of the succa. The space inside also teaches a lesson.

This empty space enfolds you inside of itself entirely, body and soul. Such is the way to perform mitzvos -- with all you have.

Perhaps this is the message of the famous gemora at the beginning of Avodoh Zora. Page 2a explains one of the prophecies (Yeshayohu 43:9): At the end of time, Hashem shall appear before everyone and, holding a sefer Torah, announce, as it were: "Well now, it's all over. We've reached the end of time. And you see clearly now how it was all for Torah. The whole story of the world was Torah. And those who gave themselves to it should come and collect their reward. Everyone else can disappear."

The gentiles, formerly the overlords but now in a panic that all is lost, rush to Hashem and try to persuade Him that they, too, are deserving of reward. In an extended session, Hashem demonstrates that they are not and finally on page 3a they suggest: "Well, give us a chance now."

Here, Hashem calls them shotim. "If you want to eat on Shabbos, you have to cook before Shabbos. The show's over. However," He goes on, ever merciful and willing to stretch a point to the limit, "I'll give you an easy mitzvah. Building and living in a succa for a few days."

"No problem," they answer and move to it.

The gemora then says they built their succos on the roofs of their homes and went in. But soon after the festival started, the weather turned very hot and, seizing on the heat as an opportunity to quit the succah, they left. "Thank goodness, that's over," they apparently said, kicking the succos.

In other words, the gentiles probably felt very quickly that the mitzva of succah is insufferable, without being able to put body and soul into it completely. They could not stay in the space of the succah because they were steeped in materialism, in crude pleasures.

Effort: The Means to the Means and to the End

Moreover, they wanted to evade the trouble of mitzvos -- "If you want to eat on Shabbos, you have to cook before Shabbos" -- and still get the reward. This too is a mistake. The more trouble you invest in the mitzvah, the greater the mitzvah -- and the more the reward.

One man grows his apples in his back garden. Another has them delivered by the grocer. There is no need to say who enjoys his apples more.

Once, a teacher gave the boys in his class a competition to learn by heart all the mishnayos of Bovo Metzia and to explain them. "Everyone who succeeds," he announced will get a NIS 100 book voucher. Since the children loved their teacher, they all made the effort and everyone won the prize except for Shimmi, who was more into playing. However, at least Shimmi was ashamed on prize day and admitted to the teacher that he had been foolish. But Shimmi also complained to the teacher: "How can I go home without a prize? What are mom and dad going to say?"

"OK," said the teacher. "I'll give you fifty shekels."

But this prize was no source of joy. Shimmi could hardly hide his shame when he told his parents the good news of his prize, even though they didn't know the real prize was NIS 100.

Not only is the reward for a tired mitzvah shameful but it falls apart in your hands like the dry leaves on the ground you're careful to ignore as you look for schach.

The space inside the succa instructs us how to perform a mitzva.

Succos, the Right Start to the Year

Succos comes at the beginning of the year. On Rosh Hashonoh, we have been judged favorably. On Yom Kippur, we have atoned. After judgment and atonement, Succos is the first big mitzvah of the new mitzvah year. It provides us with the perspective to succeed throughout the year both with regard to the world around and with regard to our inner resources.

The concepts interact too. Seeing the world as it appears in the king's inner chamber rather than in the outer chambers encourages a person to put more strength into the performance of his mitzvos and, correspondingly, investing heart and soul in the execution of a mitzvah cuts down the enticement power of the material sphere.

Thus the goyim built their succos "on" the roof, not in it. Their body and souls were not in the mitzvah, but outside of it. And if you're on the roof, perhaps you're looking over your shoulder at the stairs down to the bedroom and dining room under it, and you're not focusing on the Shechinah and the Clouds of Glory at all.

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