Sukot

Relating to the Physical,
to the Self,
to the Creator

by Rabbi Haim Lifshitz

Rabi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son come out of the cave where they have been hiding for twelve years in order to escape the Romans, who wish to put them to death. The two sages have known nothing but Torah and sanctity during their extended sojourn in the cave.  Now, suddenly they open their eyes on the 'real' world. They behold ordinary human beings pursuing ordinary workaday activities. Stunned, they gaze on the secular scene. They watch aghast as farmers plow their fields and dairymen herd their cattle. Every mortal on whom they gaze, is immediately consumed by fire. "Woe unto the creants for their insult to Torah", they exclaim. "They set aside the life of eternity and busy themselves with the life of the moment". A Heavenly voice replies: "Have you come out to destroy My world? Return to your cave."  (They return to their cave for another twelve months. When they come out the second time, they are able to accept natural human existence.)
    This midrash expresses - in human terms - what may be the major obstacle blocking the path of one who wishes to serve God: How to reconcile the needs of the moment - of ongoing existence, of survival - with spiritual self-expression? How to escape from the cramped prison of self-preservation into the broad and endless vistas of the spirit?
    The initial response to this dilemna is usually to try to create more distance between oneself and the material world. One intensifies the effort to renounce the flesh, to separate from existential needs, to retain only the bare minimum of physical involvement essential to continued existence. After all, is it not written, "You shall be sacred", and do our sages not interpret this to mean "you shall be separated"? Is this not what King David means by his famous request? God's devoted servant pleads with God: "One thing have I asked of God: That I may dwell in God's house all the days of my life…" Is King David not requesting to be released from material involvements? The sages of the Talmud seem to imply this as well, in their sharply worded pronouncement: "Whoever ceases from his study and says, 'how lovely is this tree, how lovely is this furrow', the scripture considers him as though he has forfeited his life".
    Inspired now by the Sukot holiday, I sense that these pronouncements have a deeper meaning.  Even during the rest of the year, when it is not Sukot, I do not believe that these statements refer to a mere renunciation of physical matter. As for this particular mishna, I usually interpret it as a focus on the issue of "ceasing from one's study".  The emphasis is upon the danger of perceiving existence as two separate spheres, and believing that the natural world and the study of Torah are two separate issues: If contemplating a tree constitutes the grounds for ceasing to contemplate one's study, this means that one believes in separate spheres - one believes that there is one sphere that deals with Torah and another sphere that deals with "reality". Instead of being the "one who ceases", why not be instead the one whose contemplation of a tree is simply a continuation and expression of his Torah study. Contemplating a tree in the context of Torah study then becomes a mitsva: It proves that Torah study is not disconnected from natural reality but in fact determines natural reality and shapes one's understanding of it.
    The idea that Torah and reality together constitute one holistic entity can be taken even further and deeper, when one is moved by the inspiration of Sukot: Sukot, the Festival of Huts, or Tabernacles, is not like the other two major Jewish holidays. It has something that Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Pentecost) do not have.
    Every holiday has its own characteristic element. Pesah is the festival of personal freedom. One is obligated on Pesach(and there is a special segula, a unique characteristic of this holiday that enables and promotes this effort)  to free oneself of all personal enslavements, to be liberated from old tendencies to succumb to old habits, to old weaknesses, to environmental pressures, etc., to shake off all the old demons that would like to surround and imprison and strangle and enslave, to pull free of them all, to gladly let them all drown in the sea. Shavuot is the festival of the Gift of Torah: One renews one's consciousness of the Torah as the source that compels spirituality. Sukot is the holiday of - being happy…
    Along comes Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) and puts a big question mark on the entire notion of being happy: "Of happiness [I said]: What does it do?" Along comes Jewish custom, and determined that Kohelet must be read specifically on Sukot, and specifically on the Shabat that occurs during Sukot. What is the point here? Is Jewish custom trying to put a damper on Jewish happiness?
    On the contrary: Let the Jews be happy. They have little enough happiness during the year. Jewish custom does not begrudge Jews their happiness. Yet in truth, we must ask, since the Bet HaMikdash was destroyed, how can Jews be happy? They are submerged among the nations, and enslaved to successions of kingdoms in their long and difficult exile. Furthermore, what can a Jew do - while yet seeking to be happy - with the imperative that "you shall be holy - you shall be separated"?
What is happiness in fact? What is its secret? The wise man answers: "There is no happiness like resolving doubts".
    A Jew is caught in a perpetual dilemna: "Oy li mi'yitsri, oy li mi'yotsri". "Woe to me because of my creature urges, and woe to me because my Creator urges me to control them". Wedged between God's presence and existential reality, how can a Jew be happy? Persistent anxiety over what fate holds in store upsets the Jews' tranquility and threatens their existence. Anxiety stimulates their survival mechanisms, placing the survival instincts at the center of their experience. Ego then takes over, and activates materialistic mechanisms that threaten to devour one, and turn one into a cog in the mechanical system of survival. The individual " I ", the self, which contains quality, originality, and creativity , indeed, the whole unique entity that is "I" is pushed aside, and deprived of the capacity to express itself. The axis that connects human beings with their Creator is thus severed.         For lack of a self, which initiates and chooses and activate sublime Providence, conditions cannot be created for establishing and maintaining the axis that connects human being to Creator. Given such a lack of suitable conditions, the human entity cannot attain harmony - neither with its Creator, nor with the universe, nor with itself.
    Conditions conducive to harmony can only be created when one enables one's self to express its uniquely original quality. When outer conditions are compatible with one's inner need to express one's self, then one feels that one's inner self is capable of controlling and activating the survival systems for the sake of one's own personal, inner qualitative/spiritual goals. This means that one bestows one's own meaning upon one's material and personal existence: The material and the personal join forces, to complement and complete one another, cooperating toward a common goal.
    Under these conditions, the mechanical system is granted meaning and content, which justify its existence and provide it with a goal, while the spiritual self is endowed with a framework and tools that provide it with tangible substance. Peace among these antagonists of human existence - between means and ends, and between the mechanical systems and the self - creates wholeness and completeness out of human experience. This is called self-expression. Self-expression exerts its positive influence upon the innermost spiritual territories of personality as well as on the outermost objective aspects of material existence.
    A covenant is sealed between God and the one who wishes to serve Him, which grants God's servant the privilege of participating as an equal partner in the upholding of creation, and of substantially influencing the proper procedures of the universe. Yet the ability to repair is a double-edged sword: It is bound together with the ability to cause damage and to interfere with the proper procedures of creation.
    Yet God deals kindly with his human ally. He has decreed that good thoughts and good intentions be joined to any calculation of good deeds. He considers a good thought as though it were a good action that has been performed in the real world. Whereas bad thoughts and bad intentions, He considers to be of no substance. A good thought - for example, when a human being merely contemplates the option of returning to God out of love for Him, hirhur teshuva mai'ahava - can have the effect of repairing all the damage one has ever caused. It can have the objective effect of doing good works, of exerting positive influences, not only upon oneself but upon the universe at large.
    Such symbiosis between the self and the universe can become so perfect and so powerful as to render action unnecessary. It is sufficient for a servant of God to ponder repentance in his heart, in order to wield a direct influence both upon the Creator and upon the universe.
    "To speak of Your kindness in the morning and your faith in the nights." In the nights, "the judgments rule". Therefore the evening prayer is not appropriate for petitioning God to fulfil one's needs. What purpose then is served by the requests recited at ma'ariv, the evening prayer?
    Requests made during the evening prayer reflect an inner turning toward God. One faces a new need that has surfaced in one's awareness, whether in one's inner self or in one's outer existential situation. One faces also the realization of one's own inability to fulfill the need.  One therefore turns outward, or rather upward, to request help from Heaven. Being mainly conscious of the sensation of distress that has created the need, one's senses the need to petition the source of abundance in order for the request to be fulfilled. One's entire being is involved with distress and need, and with the petition to alleviate and to fulfil these.
    In the evening prayer - as opposed to shaharit and minha, the morning and afternoon prayers - the focus is upon internalizing awareness, on working at  imbuing one's own awareness with a belief in the ability of the Omnipotent One. Certainty that the power to fulfil one's request lies in the hands of the Creator of the universe is instilled into the depths of one's consciousness. Ths action takes place in one's innermost thought processes.
    The wonder of it is that by performing this action, by actively creating one's own faith in the Creator's omnipotence, by impenetrating this belief into the depth of one's heart, one has created the possibility of having one's request fulfilled. One has taken a step toward meeting one's own needs that is no less effective, indeed perhaps more effective, than referring one's request from the inner self to the outer environment, from "being" to “doing.”  One who internalizes belief in the depths of felt awareness, transforms the abstract concept of belief into powerful human essence. One who petitions and also believes, creates an omnipotent Godly presence out of of one's very self - and the request is fulfilled thereby, by the power of faith alone. Let us attempt to understand this profound matter.

THE DYNAMICS OF NEGOTIATION:
GOD'S SERVANT NEGOTIATES WITH GOD.

In the verse "I have cleared the house" is implied the method by which God's servant may form a connection with God: Ego fills every space that is empty of God's presence, and prevents the creation of Godly presence, and does not permit its immanence through the human essence called God's servant. Distancing ego, and, at a more advanced stage, drafting ego into the service of the self at the moment that the self is serving its Creator, clears a space for the forming of a Godly presence by way of the human presence. At this point, awareness of one's own need - in the form of directing a request toward God - can play a critical role. The consciousness of one's awareness of one's own need is tantamount to a recognition that the fulfillment of one's own need does not lie within one's own power. This recognition creates a space that is clear of ego, clear of arrogance, and free of illusions about being in control. The request for one's own needs becomes a turning toward God, inviting God's immanent presence.
     Here we can find justification for the practice of requesting one's needs of God, for after all, what do we understand of existential needs? How can we dare inform the Creator of the universe of our personal needs? Does the Creator not know far better than we what is necessary for human beings? Furthermore, how dare we be preoccupied with our own egocentric needs? How is it that we are not overwhelmed with mourning, over the exile of the Shechina and the dearth of Godly presence? At most, we could perhaps make a very minimal request that would be limited to petitioning, "God, do for Your name's sake."
    According to our approach, however, the very fact of consciousness of one's inability to fulfil one's own needs, clears a space, and invites Godly presence into oneself, through oneself, within one's own presence. This consciousness means that requesting one's own needs is none other than requesting God's presence. The initial request awakens a more real and authentic need, a need for God's presence. There is nothing in the world more real and more substantial than this Godly presence, for it exists within oneself, within one's own body, within one's own experience of tangible reality.
    Thus, one negotiates. As negotiations proceed, they gain force and momentum. They begin as a simple petition for one's basic existential needs, moving on to become a petition for a personal connection with God, to eventually become a petition that the Creator's needs shall be fulfilled. This final state reflects total involvement and identification with the goal of sanctifying God's name in the universe.
    A description of this structural process is implied in the verse in Psalms: "For Your saving, God, I have hoped. I have hoped, God, for your saving. God, for your saving, I have hoped."
    "Let my soul be as dust to all. Open my heart to your Torah." After clearing one's consciousness of ego, which is the forebear of all survival mechanisms, "let my soul be still to those who curse me". Space is then cleared - "my soul as dust to all": The stimulation of the survival instincts no longer interests or preoccupies me. Then and there I am transformed to become Godly presence: "Open my heart to your Torah, and let my soul pursue your commandments." It is all part of the negotiation. An action on the part of a human being invites a response from the Creator. Once again one addresses one's existential situation: "And everyone who plans evil against me, quickly foil their plot and ruin their thought." Then once again, the invitation - extended to the Creator: "Do, for the sake of Your name." "Do, for the sake of Your intimates." "Do, for Your own sake, and answer me." For the sake of Your name - for the sake of Your presence within me.     Technically a petition, this is actually an invitation - a wish to nullify ego's presence for the sake of God's presence. In this way, existential awareness is transformed: From a mechanical tool of survival, limited to one's immediate conditions of survival, confined and restricted to the immediate local space/time coordinates, existential awareness turns into self awareness. Self awareness has no dealings with existential survival. It deals only with expressing the quality of Godliness that dwells within one.
    Inner quality seeks every opportunity to express itself, to free itself from the cobbles of survival, to break out and break through and reach up to the infinitely vast open spaces of Godliness. Its goal is to become "His footstool", to express spirit, values, and quality. Only by these can one bestow reason, meaning, and infinite purpose upon fleeting existence.
    The ultimate problem then, the one blocking the road that the infinite self wishes to travel, is (was and will always be) how to deal with the tangible realm. For it is only in the material world that the great drama is enacted: Survival versus creativity. "Being" versus "doing". This existential drama is an abundantly flowing source of tensions and energies, which generously provide existence with the electricity it must consume in order to perpetuate itself. Should matter and spirit become detached and separated from one another, all would cease - to disappear "like a dream that passeth", to wend its way peacefully to the cemetery where all is laid out in straight, calm, orderly rows of stones all evenly cut.
    A situation that seethes with vitality, in which life's titanic forces clash mightily against one another, can turn instantly still as death, by merely pulling the tangible element out of the equation; the struggle suddenly ceases. The essential challenge therefore seems to be persuading these adversarial elements to cooperate fully with one another. One must never take physical matter lightly. One must never despise physical matter - just as one must never separate any of the other adversarial pairs that together, when joined in cooperation, produce human perfection. Just as indulging pleasure without taking responsibility and without attending to one's duty eventually drains the personality and depletes one's resources, so too with the opposite. The extreme of duty disdains all pleasure. It rejects pleasure in disgust. It is too laden with spiritual emotion and too tremulous with sacred awe to even consider physical matter. Such spirituality eventually finds itself spiritually depleted. Gradually it is emptied out, a hollow vessel, drained of living breathing essence, of life experience and sensation, and therefore utterly unable to soar to spiritual heights. Grounded, feeding itself on dust, it is like the snake of old - punished by the loss of its hooves. Spirit is wretched when it has lost its wings, when it has been banished from physical matter. It is nothing but dead letters, unable even to memorialize anything other than the dead stones they rest upon.
    The suka, the hut in which we spend the Festival of Sukkot, is a temporary dwelling supposedly, yet nothing is more permanent or more eternal. It expresses the infinite spirit's dash into a cleared space. It is the self staking its claim to a freed territory, thanks to the fact that one has been liberated from the materialistic cobbles of survival. No longer "my home is my castle", but rather my spirit is my truest life.
    "Not on bread alone does man live, but rather on all that comes forth from the mouth of God", is intended to emphasize the word 'alone'. For bread is needed in order to sustain the human service of God. "When there is no flour, there is no Torah."  When there is no tangible reality, there are no vessels to contain the spirit, which yearns to be granted tangible substance.
    The spirit does not yearn to be freed of tangible substance. The yearning of the human spirit is to transform physical matter from a prison that confines the spirit into a palace that glorifies the spirit. It yearns to transform physical matter and also to pierce through it, to make windows and especially skylights, meaning especially openings facing toward heaven, and also to build observation towers, from which to gaze out upon and embrace heaven and earth.
    In this sense, Moses, our teacher, really was granted his wish, the privilege of inheriting the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel is meant to serve as the point of encounter between heaven and earth, as an observation tower, from which human beings may gaze out upon and embrace heaven and earth. Yet this thing was in fact granted to Moses: "From across, see the land, but there do not come."
    It is true that Moses would not be privileged to "eat of its fruits" but this small deprivation was not enough to justify canceling the one trial left for the Jewish people to face. The union of spirit and matter was the one trial that still remained. Had Moses entered the Land with them, he would have assisted them, ensuring their success in the one mission still left them. The trial/test aspect of this mission would then have been automatically cancelled - it could not have possibly failed if Moses had attempted it - and so the opportunity to create would have been cancelled, as would the experience of learning to earn one's own bread through the toil of trial. Had Moses accompanied the Jewish people into Israel, the settling of the Holy Land would have been transformed from a test and a trial into a homecoming, a Paradise effortlessly regained.
    Paradise is a static place. Nothing ever goes wrong there, it is true, but there is also no opportunity to express one's capacity for self-creation, in its simplest sense - the capacity to beget and to form oneself with one's own hands. In losing this, one loses also one's capacity to repair. Losing this means losing one's status of equal partnership with the Creator Himself, which is the covenant that God has sealed with our forefathers.
    When we leave our stable, permanent homes behind on Sukot, we are expressing this trial and this mission. It is our most eternal, most epic confrontation. We are building the conditions of our eternity with our own hands. Physical matter is transformed under our hands, turned into a tool of mitsva of the purest and most exalted sort. A suka serves simultaneously as the ultimate infinite pleasure and as the mitsva from which one is forbidden to extract (egocentric) pleasure: Pleasure plus prohibition against pleasure in one and the same commandment.
    How characteristic of the Jewish view of a human being. How symbolic of the role a human being must play, as God's image and as God's physical presence. We might say that happiness is when pleasure devours - with the greatest pleasure - all the materials that limit it, and all for the sake of Heaven.
    This concept of using limitations against themselves is implied in the "Waters of Mara" episode in the Bible: Bitter-tasting water  is discovered in the desert. A bitter-tasting tree is plunged into the bitter-tasting water, transforming the water to become sweet and good. Or as Samson expressed it in a later era, "from fierce, sweet has come forth."  "Peace comes upon Israel" through implementaion of this principle, expressed in Selihot, the prayers of penitence before the Days of Awe: "Out of the wound, You will make our bandage."