Pray for Shelters of Peace

The holiday of Sukkot begins Thursday. To mark this day, we are commanded to live in sukkot, temporary booths. The Torah declares, “You shall live in sukkot seven days in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 23)

The rabbis make several determinations about how these sukkot are to be constructed. They must not be permanent structures but instead temporary. Their roofs must be porous. We must be able to see the stars through its slats and even though bad weather might ruin the festive holiday meal, rain must be able to fall through the roof. In essence if a sukkah keeps out the weather, then it is no longer a sukkah but instead a house.

This is to remind us of life’s temporary quality and so that we remember the fragility of our redemption from Egypt. When we wandered through the wilderness from slavery to freedom our existence was tentative and our shelters temporary.

And yet the rabbis of the Talmud debate whether these sukkot represent actual booths or instead God’s sheltering presence. Rabbi Akiva believed they were real. He found meaning in the Torah’s historical explanation. His contemporary, Rabbi Eliezer, did not agree and believed instead that these booths signify God’s clouds of glory that offered us protection on our journey. (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 11b). And perhaps might likewise offer us protection during these precarious days.

In Eliezer’s imagination, the sukkot, we build and live in, point not to history but theology. They are about building up our faith in God’s protecting shelter. The Hashkiveinu prayer makes this plain. Every Shabbat evening we sing, “Spread over us the sukkah of Your peace.”

And this year most especially I would like to build on Rabbi Eliezer’s vision and dream that even our temporary structures become shelters of peace.

May God’s clouds of glory become sukkot of peace!