Succos - 002 Nowadays and the Future

Sukkah - In The Merit of Avraham Avinu

The Sages state in the Midrash that because Avraham Avinu enabled his guests to sit under the shade of a tree and be shielded from the sun’s heat, his descendants (the Jewish nation) merited the mitzvah of sukkah, where we sit in the shadow of the sukkah. From these words of our Sages we see that the mitzvah of sukkah is rooted in Avraham Avinu.[2]

If we reflect further into this, we find an additional connection between Avraham Avinu and sukkah. The Sages state that on the day that Avraham Avinu was ill from circumcision, Hashem removed the sun from its sheath, so that Avraham Avinu would not be disturbed by guests.[3]

The concept of Hashem removing the sun from its sheath is found elsewhere as well. The Sages teach that in the future, the nations of the world will request that Hashem give them the mitzvos so that they can earn reward. Hashem will give them an easy mitzvah, the mitzvah of sukkah to the gentiles, and then He will take the sun out of its sheath, where the temperature will become so hot that the gentiles will kick the sukkah and run out of it.[4]

Sukkah and The Sun’s Shade

What is the connection between the sun being removed from its sheath, and sukkah?

In the future, the righteous will merit to dwell in a sukkah made of the leviathan skin, and the rest of the skin will be spread out over the walls of Yerushalayim, and its light will shine from one end of the world to the other.[5] From this we see that the sukkah of the future will be totally different than the sukkah we have nowadays. The sukkah of the future will be entirely light, whereas the sukkah we have today is required to have in it more shade than sunlight[6]. The sukkah of nowadays is all about being in the shadow or shade (tzeil) of the sukkah, whereas the sukkah of the future will be entirely light, with no shadow.

Additionally, Rashi[7] states that sukkah is from the word s’chach, the mat that covers the sukkah, which is a covering that is made to shield us in the sukkah from the sun.

Let us think into the depth of these concepts.

Sukkah of Nowadays: Dwelling In The ‘Shadow’ of Emunah

The words of the Zohar[8] are well-known: sukkah is called the tzeila d’mehemenusa, “the shadow of emunah (faith)”. There is emunah, and there is tzeil ha’emunah. The complete level of emunah is called emunah, whereas the incomplete level of emunah is called tzeila d’meheimenusa, or tzeil emunah. Thus, the sukkah of nowadays, which is called tzeila d’meheimenusa, represents a level of incomplete emunah, in contrast to the sukkah of the future, which will reflect the level of complete emunah.

Avraham Avinu was the first person to reveal emunah onto the world. Avraham is called “Ezrachi”, from the word zerichah (to shine), because he shined the light of emunah upon the world. Thus Avraham Avinu is the one who brought the tzeila d’meheimenusa onto the world, and that is why we were given the mitzvah of sukkah in Avraham Avinu’s merit.

The sukkah of nowadays requires us to sit in its shadow because in the current era, we are only able to enjoy a partial level of emunah, and not the complete level. We are only in the “shadow” of emunah, not in the emunah itself. Only in the future, where the complete level of emunah will be revealed, will there be no requirement of tzeil\shadow in the sukkah. That will be the sukkah of the leviathan, which will be a light that shines stronger than the sun – it will be the reality of emunah itself, and not merely in the “shadow” of emunah.

The Difference Between Emunah and ‘In The Shadow’ of Emunah

Now let us try to understand, with siyata d’shmaya, the difference between the levels of tzeil emunah and emunah.

Tzeil emunah is an offshoot of emunah, it is a partial revelation of emunah, but does not reveal actual emunah as it is. This is the level of sukkah we have nowadays, which is entirely about the tzeil emunah.

In contrast, the level of actual emunah, which will be revealed in the sukkah of the future, is described in the words of the Sages: “In the future, Hashem will remove the sun from its sheath, where the righteous will be healed from it, and the wicked will be judged from it”.[9] How will the righteous be healed, and how will the wicked be punished? The Gemara says that one who shames a Torah scholar cannot be healed[10]; elsewhere, the Gemara says that ignoramuses will not be resurrected with the dead[11], and the Gemara there says that the only way for them to merit rectification is to attach themselves to Torah scholars. The Yismach Moshe[12] explains this in the name of the Bach that one who shames a Torah scholar cannot be healed in the sense that he will not be resurrected with the dead, and this is because one who has shamed a Torah scholar is missing bittul (self-nullification) to the Torah scholar; only through nullifying oneself to a Torah scholar can one merit resurrection in the future. In contrast, the righteous will be healed in the future from the sun’s rays, because they have nullified themselves [to Hashem].

Thus, bittul (self-nullification) is the key to recovery from all spiritual maladies. When the soul of a person is not nullified to its higher source, the abilities in the soul remain mixed and unsorted, and this is the root of all spiritual sickness. But when the soul nullifies itself to its higher source, all of the abilities in the soul are then nullified and returned to their root, where no sickness can take hold.

When Hashem will remove the sun from its sheath in the future, this can be understood on a deeper level as the revelation of the level of total emunah, which is above the level of being ‘in the shadow’ of emunah. There will be no more ‘shadow’. Each person will react differently to this revelation. The non-Jewish nations will kick the sukkah, as the Gemara says, and this includes all of the wicked people in the world; whereas the righteous will nullify themselves to its light.

When Yonah was spit out of the whale, Hashem caused the sun to beat down on him very hard, whereupon he fainted. Yonah said to Hashem that he would rather die than be exposed to this heat.[13] This can be understood on two different levels. Either it can be a cause for mesirus nefesh – giving up one’s soul to Hashem and being prepared to die for Hashem, which is a holy kind of death – or it can mean, chas v’shalom, an expression of rebellion towards Hashem, as Esav said, “Behold, I am going to die; for what do I need the firstborn rights for?”[14] – Esav ‘kicked’ at his firstborn status.

When the sun is taken out of its sheath, and there is no shade from the sun, either this will cause a person to nullify himself to Hashem, or it will cause him to kick and rebel, chas v’shalom. If one lived a life of bittul towards Hashem, he is more in touch with the great spiritual light of the future, and he will be able to achieve a greater level of bittul in the future, to the point that he will be able to totally nullify his existence to Hashem. In contrast, one who did not live a life of bittul towards Hashem during this current lifetime will not be able to survive the revelation of the future. It will be way above and beyond his perception, so he will kick at it.

When a great spiritual revelation is revealed to a person, either one of two reactions will ensue. Either the person will recognize its exaltedness and he will nullify himself to it, willing to give himself up for it; or he will oppose it and rebel and kick at it.

Based upon the above, we can now understand that righteous will be healed in the future from the sun being removed from its sheath, because since they were used to a life of bittul, they will receive a complete healing, whereas the wicked will be judged by this powerful revelation, because since they will not be able to handle its light, they will instead kick at it. They will kick at it because they will feel a tremendous contradiction in their souls, and this is the depth of the punishment that is called “Kaf HaKela”.

Our Avodah In The Current Era

In the future there will be no more shade from the sun; there will be no more tzeil\shadow. Nowadays, however, the avodah of a person involves ‘shadow’. In other words, in our current era, the light of the future is currently hidden; any spiritual ‘light’ that we do have today is on a level of ‘ohr ganuz’ (the hidden light). In a similar context, Shabbos is referred to as ‘hidden’ treasure.[15] In the future, when it will be revealed “the day that is entirely Shabbos”, the Shabbos will no longer be a ‘hidden’ treasure, for it will be fully revealed.

Thus, the sukkah that we have nowadays is meant for us to reveal the spiritual light precisely through ‘shadow’.

Here we learn a deep and profound concept. There are two aspects of our avodah – we have an avodah to reveal spiritual light onto the world through ‘shadow’, and we have a more inner aspect of our avodah, where we reveal spiritual light that has no shadow. The entire concept of shadow began after Creation, where Hashem created light and darkness and separated them. The heavens were created from the original light that was around before Creation.[16] That original light of before Creation is the absolute level of Hashem’s oneness, and it will be revealed in the future.

But we also remember this original light on some level even in our current era. As an example, there is a halacha that when building a sukkah, we must first build the walls and only after that do we place the s’chach[17]; the depth of this is that we first reveal a sukkah where there is entirely sunlight and no shadow, and after that we have a sukkah with s’chach, where there is sunlight and shadow.

In Conclusion

The sukkah of the future will essentially be a dwelling of the Shechinah (Hashem’s Presence) that will fill the entire world, where the entire Creation will achieve unity, bound together by the light of the Shechinah. This is the perfected sukkah which we hope, await, and long for. In the future, we will see how even all of the ‘darkness’ that we see in the world can really be attributed to a source of light, which is where darkness is created from.

It will not just be the ‘shadow’ of emunah – it will be emunah itself. It will be the sukkah that is emunah itself, and not just a ‘tzeila d’meheimunsa’ that it is nowadays. The sukkah of the future will be the sukkah were we will finally see how all ‘darkness’ really stems from ‘light’, for ultimately, light and darkness are originally one undivided creation. We will be able to see how darkness itself can be the light of emunah, which we cannot understand through human logic.

This will be the sukkah shleimah, the perfect sukkah, which we express in the words, “And spread upon us the sukkah of Your completion” (ופרוס עלינו סוכת שלומיך). May we merit from Hashem to have the light of the sukkah of the future to shine upon us, and to merit it on its complete level, may it come speedily in our days.