In this post, Rabbi Paul Bloom fastens on to our farewell to the temporary home that has accommodated us for the past week. What should we be thinking? What is the takeaway message from our poignant parting?
Today, on Hoshanah Rabbah, we reach the spiritual crescendo of the festival of Sukkot. Soon we will transition into Shemini Atzeret, the day that symbolizes Hashem’s special closeness to His people — “ָשָׁה עָלַי פְּרִידַתְכֶםק”, “Your separation is difficult for Me.”
And yet, even before we take leave of the festival, there is
a tender custom — recorded by the Rema — to say a Yehi Ratzon upon
leaving the sukkah:
נהגו לומר
כשנפטר מן הסוכה:
יהי רצון מלפניך ה' אלקי
ואלקי אבותי
כשם שקיימתי וישבתי בסוכה
זו,
כן אזכה בשנה הבאה לישב
בסוכת עורו של לויתן
“May it be Your will, Hashem our
God and God of our fathers,
that just as I have fulfilled the
mitzvah and dwelt in this sukkah,
so may I merit next year to dwell in the
sukkah of the Leviathan.”
This is remarkable. We do not recite a similar farewell
after other mitzvot. We do not say goodbye to the shofar, nor to the lulav, nor
even to matzah. Only the sukkah receives this parting prayer. Why?
Rav Yitzchak Hutner (Pachad Yitzchak, Sukkos 27)
uncovers the reason. The Torah commands us on the festivals to appear before
Hashem “in the place which He will choose.” Regarding Pesach and Shavuot, the
Torah specifies: “in the place where Hashem rests His Name” — the Beit
HaMikdash in Yerushalayim. But regarding Sukkot, the Torah omits that phrase. He
notes that when the Torah speaks about the pilgrimage festivals, it says:
שָׁלֹשׁ
פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה יֵרָאֶה כָל זְכוּרְךָ
אֶת פְּנֵי ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ
בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחָר
(דברים ט״ז:ט״ז)
Pesach
וְזָבַחְתָּ
פֶּסַח לַה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ צֹאן וּבָקָר
בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר
ה' לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם
(דברים ט״ז:ב׳)
כִּי אִם אֶל
הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ
לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם
תִּזְבַּח אֶת הַפֶּסַח
(שם ו׳)
Shavuot
וְשָׂמַחְתָּ
לִפְנֵי ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ
בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר
ה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם
(דברים ט״ז:י״א)
By Pesach and Shavuot, the Torah adds:
בַּמָּקוֹם
אֲשֶׁר יִבְחַר ה' לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם
“the place where Hashem rests His Name.”
Thus, the sukkah itself becomes a Yerushalayim, a sanctuary
in time and space. And just as one who visited Yerushalayim for the festivals
was required to remain overnight — mitzvat lina — and take leave with
reverence, so too do we bid farewell to our sukkah with a blessing and a
prayer.
We do not simply step out. We say goodbye. We whisper: “Just
as I sat beneath this shade, may I merit to sit beneath the shade of the
Leviathan.”
The Sukkah of the Leviathan: A Glimpse of the Future
But what is this Sukkah of the Leviathan?
In the Gemara in Bava Batra 75a, Rabbah quotes Rabbi
Yochanan’s description of two wondrous scenes of the World to Come:
עָתִיד
הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לַעֲשׂוֹת סְעוּדָה לַצַּדִּיקִים מִבְּשָׂרוֹ שֶׁל
לִוְיָתָן
עָתִיד
הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לַעֲשׂוֹת סוּכָּה לַצַּדִּיקִים מֵעוֹרוֹ שֶׁל
לִוְיָתָן
In the future, the Holy One,
Blessed be He, will make a feast for the righteous from the flesh of the
leviathan…
In the future, the Holy One,
Blessed be He, will prepare a sukkah for the righteous from the skin of the
leviathan
This is no simple fable. It is a vision — aggadah —
teaching us deep truths about spiritual reward and the nature of closeness to
God.
The Leviathan, the great sea creature, represents the most
hidden of God’s creations — "לויתן זה יצרת לשחק בו”
(Tehillim 104:26), “You created the Leviathan to play with.” The Midrash
(Bereishit Rabbah 7:4) explains that Leviathan symbolizes the joy of divine
play, the overflowing abundance of God’s creative energy.
In the world as we know it, that spiritual light is too vast
for us to contain. The Leviathan must remain hidden beneath the sea — the realm
of the concealed. But in the future, when the world is purified and humanity
refined, the hidden will become revealed, and we will be able to “feast” upon
that light — to draw nourishment from the very mysteries of creation.
The skin of the Leviathan — its outer covering —
represents the vessel that contains that great spiritual energy. Hashem will
fashion from it a sukkah — a canopy of light — to shelter the righteous. It
will be a dwelling of pure Divine radiance, a structure not of wood and
branches but of spiritual comprehension, where every soul will bask in God’s
Presence.
The Zohar calls this the “צִלָּא דְּמְהֵימְנוּתָא”
— “the shade of faith.” Our earthly sukkah, built of simple materials, is a
rehearsal for that ultimate sukkah. When we sit under the s’chach, we dwell in
the “shadow of faith,” acknowledging that all security comes from Hashem. But
in the future, when faith becomes sight, the temporary shade will give way to eternal
illumination — the sukkah of the Leviathan.
Thus, when we take leave of our sukkah, we are not merely
stepping out of a hut — we are stepping toward eternity. We say, “Ribono Shel
Olam — let this experience not fade. Transform the fragile shade of this sukkah
into the everlasting shelter of Your Presence.”
The Farewell and the Promise
Leaving the sukkah is bittersweet. All week, we have lived surrounded by holiness
— our meals, our songs, our prayers wrapped in sanctity. And now we must return
to the ordinary world. Like those who once left Yerushalayim, our hearts
whisper, “קָשָׁה עָלַי
פְּרִידַתְכֶם— the separation is hard.”
Yet we leave with hope. For every moment inside the sukkah
has eternal value. Every song we sang, every guest we welcomed, every word of
Torah spoken — all of it builds the walls of that future sukkah above.
When we say Yehi Ratzon, we are not uttering a poetic
line — we are expressing faith. Faith that history moves toward redemption.
Faith that the fragile branches of today will one day become the shining canopy
of tomorrow.
And so, as we step from the sukkah into the world, we carry
its light with us. We have tasted the joy of Divine protection, the sweetness
of trust. And we pray that soon —בִּמְהֵרָה בְּיָמֵינוּ —
we will once again dwell, together with all of Israel, “בְּסֻכַּת
שְׁלוֹמֶךָ,” in the Sukkah of peace — the Sukkah of the Leviathan,
radiant with the light of the Shechinah.
