We often experience a feeling of spiritual deflation immediately after we emerge from the exalted atmosphere of Yom Kippur. To plunge directly into the icy waters of everyday life is a very challenging task. We have just been given an entire day to nurture our souls, to exist as angels without the need to fulfill the requirements of our bodies. So the Lord, so to speak, allows us a more gradual descent into our physical, everyday lives. We are asked to forgo the creature comforts of our homes for a period of time, to dwell in a sukkah, exposed to the heavens and the natural world.
The sukkah, like Yom Kippur itself, is a place of the soul
and not of the body. This is because, no matter how elaborate and luxurious we
attempt to make it, the sukkah remains a temporary and exposed environment. While
the body is aware of this situation and is somewhat discomforted by it, the
soul revels in it. It is in this way that the soul clings on to the last
vestiges of Yom Kippur right through to Hoshanah Rabbah, before our bodies
return to dominate our lives.
The day of Hoshanah Rabbah is considered as a High Holy Day
in its own right and not merely a regular day of Chol HaMoed. Though none
of the restrictions of Yom Kippur are imposed on that festive day or throughout
any of the joyous days that follow the first day of the Chag, the spiritual
atmosphere of Yom Kippur is still present, for we are living amongst holy
clouds and not in physically strong structures.
Jews the world over are willing to spend sizeable amounts of
money in the fulfillment of the commandments of the holiday of Sukkot. We are
all aware that the price of a lemon, an orange or any other citrus fruit at the
local greengrocer is of little consequence to us. Not so the price of an etrog!
It is not the fruit itself that makes it so valuable to so many. It is our
ability to fulfill the will of God through an etrog – itself a gift of God’s
bounty – that makes it so valuable as to be almost priceless.
The physical instruments that we use throughout our lives
are a means through which our souls connect to our Creator. Just as the value
of an etrog lies in what lies behind it–- in what it represents and who
ordained its use on the holiday of Sukkot -- would that we would view
everything in life, all of our goods and possessions, friends and families and
our society generally, with such a perspective.
In essence, that is the basis of Jewish thought and the
moral code of the Torah. On Yom Kippur we spurn physicality; on Sukkot we learn
to use physicality to help to connect us to our Creator. And it is that spirit
of understanding our role in this world of eternal values that truly occasions
within us the joy and happiness that radiates from the holiday of Sukkot.
Chag Same’ach, Rabbi Berel Wein