An innovation at Beit Knesset Hanassi this Sukkot was Rabbi Kenigsberg's introduction of a short, sweet "Farewell to the Sukkah". Before taking our leave of the shul Sukkah, we had a bite to eat, sang some songs and said a couple of short divrei Torah. The following was said over by Jeremy Phillips:
Another strange thing about saying goodbye to the Sukkah is
the unique nature of this custom. After all, we don’t say goodbye to the shofar
when we’re finished with blowing it; we don’t say goodbye to the arba minim
either. Nor, on Pesach, do we bid farewell to the matzah—though to be honest I
think the parting of the ways between man and matzah is often greeted with more
relief than grief.
Well, actually, there is no problem because, in point of
fact, we don’t really say goodbye to it at all. Both the Rinat Yisrael and the
ArtScroll machzorim describe this little ceremony in Hebrew not as a farewell
but as a Yetziah, an exit. And the function of the text of the yehi ratzon which we recite is
not to say goodbye to the Sukkah, but to remind God that we have notched
up some serious brownie points for performing the mitzvah of living in the
Sukkah and to ask that these self-same brownie points be carried forward into
the year we only recently commenced.
Some machzorim follow the yehi ratzon with a kabbalistic
paragraph, ribona de’alma, which likewise focuses not on the past week but on
the year that lies ahead. In it we ask God to let the angels that we have created during the
Chag through our performance of the mitzvot of Sukkah and the arba minim
accompany us on our return to normal life. We then ask God if He would be so
kind as to let the aforesaid angels help protect us from sin and from sha’ot
hamitragshot – malevolent moments – that are likely to occur, and not to punish
us for our misdemeanours before we’ve had a chance to repent for them
ourselves.
So, all on all, this alleged farewell to the Sukkah is
really a forward-facing strategy for dealing with our return to what we like to
call our normality.
Having said all this, it seems to me that saying goodbye to
the Sukkah is a good thing to do, since it is a way of showing respect to the
departing Chag. In light of this, I’d like to make reference to a Mishnah from
Avot:
רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר הַמּוּדָעִי אוֹמֵר: הַמְחַלֵּל אֶת הַקֳּדָשִׁים, וְהַמְבַזֶּה אֶת הַמּוֹעֲדוֹת, וְהַמַּלְבִּין פְּנֵי חֲבֵרוֹ בָּרַבִּים, וְהַמֵּפֵר בְּרִיתוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ, וְהַמְגַלֶּה פָנִים בַּתּוֹרָה שֶׁלֹּא כַהֲלָכָה, אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁיֵּשׁ בְּיָדוֹ תּוֹרָה וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים, אֵין לוֹ חֵֽלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא
Rabbi Elazar HaModa’i used to say: One who profanes the kadashim ("holy things"), degrades the Festivals, humiliates his friend in public, nullifies the covenant of our father Abraham, or who interprets the Torah contrary to its true intent---although he may possess Torah knowledge and good deeds, he has no share in the World to Come.
What does ‘hamevazeh et hamo’adot’ really mean? How does one
cheapen or degrade a festival? According to many commentaries, following in the
footsteps of the Bartenura, this means being insufficiently respectful to Chol
HaMoed. How do we know this? One of our own local commentators—Rabbi Menachem Mordechai
Frankel-Teomim (who lived down the road at no.2, rechov HaShla)-- explains
that, if the word mo’adim means the yamim tovim themselves, the feminine form
of the word—mo’adot—refers to a gentler sort of mo’ed, which is Chol HaMoed.
For us, not just sitting down in the Sukkah for the occasional snack but, ideally, living in it full-time, is the main mitzvah of Chol HaMoed, a mitzvah we can even fulfil when we are fast asleep. This being so, it is surely appropriate to acknowledge its importance by leaving it in an appropriately respectful manner. More than that, we should be very careful not to denigrate it. As the Midrash Shmuel points out, any form of disrespect to Chol HaMoed has potentially disastrous consequences: if you don’t respect its integrity in this world, you don’t deserve to be respected in Olam HaBo, the world to come.
