Where's the Orchestra?
The Sukkah helps us transition from the highs of the High Holidays to the messiness of real-life.
In this week’s Parshat Haazinu, Moshe continues his closing words to the nation of Israel in a unique poetic form. The verses of the shira (song) of Haazinu are complex and challenging to understand. Many of the verses can be interpreted in different ways, and commentators abound on their meanings. The shira is not only unique in meaning, but also in shape; the words are laid out in the Torah scroll in two narrow columns, a rare format in the Torah. Why the sudden complexity and poetry?
Take for example the verse Tzur Yiladcha teshi which can be translated, You ignored the rock who created you. But the literal translation could also be, the rock who created You is weak, meaning that God as the rock is weak! Rashi brings the words of the sages in the Sifri to explain this passage. He teaches that God wants to reward us with happiness and success, but we stand in His way when we sin. We tie His hands, so to speak – and in that way we make God weak.
Rav Chaim Volozhiner, in his famous work, Nefesh HaChaim, understands this to mean that God granted human beings the autonomy to make choices - choices that are independent of God’s will. Through our choices we limit God, or in the words of Haazinu, we make God weak. Along the same lines, the Nefesh HaChaim refers to another verse in Tehilim (Psalms) that says, Tnu oz leilohim (Give strength to God). In that sense, God is dependent on us and our choices.
The concept that God gives us the power to choose is very closely connected to this unique period in time, from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur and on to Hoshana Rabbah and Shmini Atzeret.
On Rosh Hashana, we discussed the idea that we must choose our attitudes, that when the Torah tells us Ubacharta bachaim (choose life) it means that we must choose our own individual path in life. If we choose to use Yom Hazikaron, the day of thought and memory, to redefine ourselves, God will give us the potential to become the person we most want to be. But if we’re passive, as the Sifri says, God’s hands are tied.
We also previously discussed the idea that on Yom Kippur we must choose to care about our relationship to God. Once again, no one, not even God, can make us care. Caring must start with us.
The Sukkah is the grand finale to this special period in time. A Sukkah is dependent on shade – it’s not kosher unless Tzilcha meruba meichamsa (shade is greater than sun), most of the interior of the sukkah must be shaded instead of allowing in sunlight. Why is it so important to have a shadow in the Sukkah? The Nefesh HaChaim refers to another verse in Tehillim, Hashem Tzilcha (God is your shadow), pointing out that a shadow only moves after the body moves. So in this sense the sukkah is a physical reminder to us that in this world, God is giving us the power to choose - we take the lead and He is our shadow.
Only then can we sit in God's shadow in the sukkah, not passively, but with the understanding that His shadow is a reflection of us.
We've come a long way from Az Yashir, our song at the sea during the Exodus, where we watched as God took control of nature and of Egypt and led us out to freedom. But we could not be free while living in God's shadow. As Moshe told us in parshat Ki Tavo, we had to first fail and spend forty harsh years in the desert to finally achieve Lev ladaat (a heart to know), a personal connection and understanding as individuals and as a nation to life itself.
Our level of sophistication and understanding at the shira (song) of Haazinu is incomparable to our nascent level of understanding when we sang at the Red Sea. We are a completely different people now. We understand now that the adversity we faced in the desert enabled us to become the people we are today and to appreciate our relationship with each other and God on another level. This might also be why Haazinu is formatted into two unique columns when written in the Torah Scroll, symbolizing that life is organized and meaningful, even if it is often hard to see.
In Psalm 27, L’Dovid Hashem Ori, which we recite twice a day during the entire high holiday period, we say Ki yitzpineini b'sukoh (God hides us in the Sukkah), a reference to the holiday of Sukkot according to the midrash. It’s intriguing that we pronounce the word b'sukkoh, meaning in God’s Sukkah, but it’s actually written as b'sukkah, which could refer to any sukkah. This concept is called a kri-u’ktiv (read- written) and both the read and written version of the word has a message for us. The commentators say this distinction between what we see when we look at the word, versus what we hear when we say the word, is based on the contrast between body and soul, as explained by Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, the Vilna Gaon. The written version has a physical form that we can see and is analogous to the physical world. But speech is more like the soul – you can’t see it but you know it exists.
That’s the hidden message of this verse. We can use the physical shelter of the sukkah to protect us from the elements. That’s what we see when we look at the word as it’s written, b’sukkah referring to any sukkah. But at the same time, the soul of the mitzvah is our trust that ultimately it is God who keeps us safe. Even when it’s difficult to see, and events feel random and disconnected, we’re in God’s Sukkah. So when we read the word we say b’sukkoh referring to God’s sukkah. Sukkot provides us with the level of understanding to deal with this complicated world and see that God works as the soul of the world, beyond the random happenings in life.
That's how a song works too. An orchestra has many moving parts and each one in isolation isn’t always enjoyable to hear. But every instrument is vital to create music. Similarly, every detail in life and history plays a part in the larger song of life.
“Life is a song. Your thoughts are the music. Now play beautiful music and sing a wonderful song.”
― Debasish Mridha
Only after the independence we achieved on Rosh Hashana and our choice to care and relate that we made on Yom Kippur can we give strength to a God who has been made weak by our choices. A God who as the Rambam (Maimonides) tells us in Hilchot Teshuva (Laws of Teshuva), considers his will secondary to our own choices. Only then can we choose to love God despite all the evil in the world. Only then can we sit in God's shadow in the sukkah, not passively, but with the understanding that his shadow is a reflection of us. Only then can we truly understand that God loves us not in spite of life's difficulties but because of our difficulties. Only after our tumultuous history can we understand today what even King David could not1, that life and Torah is a Shira (Song) and we are members of its historic orchestra.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song.
— Plato
Chag Sameach. הרחמן הוא יקים לנו את סוכת דוד הנופלת (May God raise up for us the fallen Sukkah of David).
Copyright 2022 by Eliezer Hirsch
( זמירות היו לי חוקיך בבית מגורי, see Sotah 35a)