“Uf’ros aleynu sukkat shlom’kha” – “…and spread over us the Sukkah of Your peace” (from the daily Evening Service).
“Harachaman – Hu yakim lanu et sukkat David ha-nofelet” – “The Merciful One! May He erect for us King David’s fallen Sukkah” (added to the Grace after Meals during Sukkot).
It seems puzzling that we should pray to G-d every evening, “spread over us the Sukkah of Your peace”.
After all, the very definition of the Sukkah is a flimsy, temporary structure. Do we really want peace to be flimsy and temporary, merely an illusion to disguise war and terrorism?
Surely the authentic Jewish definition of peace is entirely different!
After all, over and over again the Midrash tells us that “Great is peace, for G-d’s Name is called Peace” (Vayikra Rabbah 9:9; Bamidbar Rabbah 11:7; Masechet Derech Eretz, Perek Shalom 11; Sifrei Bamidbar, Nasso 42; Yalkut Shimoni, Nasso 711 et. al.).
Would it not be more appropriate to pray that G-d spread over us His reinforced concrete roof of peace?! Is that not more secure than a mere sukkah?
To understand this, let us understand the nature of the sukkah, and specifically the nature of its covering, the s’chach.
The s’chach of the sukkah must produce more shade than sunlight; nevertheless, the stars should be visible through it (see the Mishnah Berurah 631:5; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 134:5).
Additionally, the s’chach should provide shelter from light rain; nevertheless, it should not keep heavy rain out (Tosafot, Sukkah 2a, s.v. ki avid; Tur, Orach Chaim 631; Mishnah Berurah 631:6).
(For the sake of halachic clarity, we should point out that these opinions are not universal; the Shulchan Aruch , for example, says that “even if the s’chach is as thick as [the roof of] a house, such that stars cannot be seen through it, it is nevertheless kosher”.
Similarly, even though Rabbeinu Tam ruled that if the s’chach is so thick that even heavy rain cannot penetrate then the sukkah is invalid, the Tur [Orach Chaim 631] and the Beit Yosef [ibid.] seem to disagree.
For sure, we know that Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin made his s’chach so thick that it would be proof against rain, so that he could fulfil the mitzvah of eating in his sukkah regardless of the weather; even so, Rabbi Chaim would leave a small section of thinner s’chach to validate the entire sukkah.
Why not pray that G-d spread over us His reinforced concrete roof of peace?! Is that not more secure than a mere sukkah?
In any event, all authorities agree that ideally, these two criteria should be met – that the stars should be visible and that heavy rain should penetrate.)
The sukkah teaches us some basic principles: that the Jew should see the stars – he must constantly aspire to Heaven. Rain – the water which symbolises Torah – must always be able to penetrate into the Jew’s dwelling.
The Torah commands: “You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days – all who are native to Israel shall dwell in sukkot, so that all your generations will know that I caused the Children of Israel to dwell in sukkot upon My taking them out from the land of Egypt; I am HaShem your G-d” (Leviticus 23:42-43).
The sukkot in the Sinai Desert hardly provided shade from the fierce heat by day, nor from the bitter cold of the desert night. It was obvious, in that harsh and hostile environment, that our protection came not from flimsy physical structures, but from our spiritual connexion with G-d.
So too, the sukkah teaches us that though our protection today appears to come from the bricks and cement, the wood and stone, with which we build our year-round houses, the reality is that our flimsy and temporary structure, with only leaves as a covering, offers us the only genuine protection – G-d’s supervision.
The Talmud cites the maxim of Rabbi Eliezer the Great (Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus): “Anyone who has bread in his basket, but says ‘What will I eat tomorrow?’ – belongs only to those who are of little faith” (Sotah 48b).
The Kotzker Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgenstern, 1787–1859) gave a brilliant insight into the Jewish perception of faith: The evidence for such a person’s lack of faith, explained the Kotzker Rebbe, is not his fears for tomorrow, but rather his feeling of security for today. His faith is in his basket of bread, and not in the One Who provided him with his bread."
This is the lesson that the sukkah comes to instil within us: our security depends not upon the bricks and cement, the stout doors with their locks, the solid roofs wherein we dwell for most of the year; rather, our security depends upon He Who gave us the means to build these solid structures.
For one week in the year, the Jew is enjoined to make a practical declaration of this faith, by physically discarding the illusion that his security depends upon wood, stones, and metal.
Hence our prayer to G-d to “…spread over us the Sukkah of Your peace”, and the yearning that G-d will “erect for us King David’s fallen Sukkah”.
The sukkah – that physically flimsy and frail and temporary structure, open to the stars and the rains of the heavens, vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the elements – is the spiritually firmest and steadiest protection that can ever exist.
The sukkah into which the rain can enter is the structure into which doubts and heresy will never enter.