REACHING
FOR THE STARS: SUCCOT
Shira
Smiles shiur –
September 15, 2013/Tishrei 11, 5773
Summary
by Channie Koplowitz Stein
In giving the criteria for building a kosher succah, the Gemarrah says
that
while we must put schach on top of the succah, it must not be
so thick
that it totally obscures the sky and the stars. The Mishnah continues:
Even if
the stars are not seen, the succah is kosher.
Hebrew is a fascinating language that reveals wisdom in each letter and
in each
word. The four lettered Hebrew word k-o-ch-(a)-v,
star, can be divided in half to create two numerical values, twenty-two
and
twenty-six. Twenty-two represents the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in
which
the holy Torah was written, while twenty-six represents the name of
God. These
two must be seen “within
it”,
within
the person sitting in the succah, within the Jew, explains Rav Schorr
in Halekach
Vehalebuv. And Rabbi Schorr takes this idea one step further.
Hashem wants
us to be a segulah, a treasure, for him, as He states in the
Torah.
Rabbi Schorr focuses on segulah as the vocalization symbol segul,
formed by three dots. The two upper dots represent Hashem and the
Torah. But
they must come down and enter your soul, represented by the third dot.
The
lesson of that law, to see the stars within, is that we must each see
and
recognize our own greatness, that Hashem has imparted to each of us a
share in
His greatness from on high. Hashem believes in us, embraces us, and
shines His
light through us.
If we do not recognize our great potential, says Rabbi Pincus, we are
limiting
our spiritual growth by building a ceiling through which the light
cannot
penetrate over our heads.
Here we now get a disagreement between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai.
While both
agree that night stars should be visible, they appear to be
conflicted
over “the
stars of the sun”.
Beit Shammai concludes that a succah in which you cannot see the stars
of the
sun is invalid, while Beit Hillel concludes that it is still valid.
Along these lines, the Tallelei Chaim, Chaim Hacohen Hachalban,
presents the controversy between Rashi and Rambam. Rashi believes that
the “stars
of the sun”
means that we must
see the rays of the sun within the succah, while Rambam posits that we
must be
able to see the large emerging stars that appear and are already
visible while
the sun is still out. In either case, the light must be able to enter
the
succah through the schach. The stars represent the light of
Godliness,
and Rashi posits that we must let that light into what would otherwise
be a
dark succah, that Hashem is shining that light upon us. Rambam, on the
other
hand, takes the position that we are in the darkness of this world, but
must
look up and out of this darkness to the light of Godliness above, that
we must
take the initiative and look upward to our Creator.
The succah represents our home in the physical world, continues Hachalban.
The world has tremendous power, and we could easily be lost in its
allure.
Hashem contracted Himself so that we are able to exist in this world.
The schach
represents the separation between the physical world and the total
Godliness of
the spiritual world. The solid ceiling of a home implies total
separation,
while the thinner schach covering allows for the connection
between the
two worlds. The succah represents us, and our challenge is to maintain
a
connection between the physical world in which our bodies exist and the
spiritual world for which our souls yearn.
How can we do this? We can look to the “stars”
of Jewish
existence as our role models, to our teachers and righteous people. We
must
look beyond our homes to see the spiritual potential within each of us.
We must
not live constantly with a solid ceiling above us, blocking out the
Divine
light; rather we must always be open to the great spiritual stars that
illuminate our lives even while we are still within a concrete and
physical
world.
To illustrate this point, the Sifsei Chaim, Rabbi Chaim
Friedlander,
draws on the hypothetical case of a ben sorer umoreh, a
rebellious son.
While the Ramban explains that this son is to be put to death on the
potential
of the great sins he will do in the future, the Sifsei Chaim,
sees in
these laws a lesson for us. This rebellious son is described as one who
does
not listen to his parent’s
voice and is a glutton and a drunkard. Is that so terrible? Ramban
tells us
that he is held accountable for not living a life of holiness and of
cleaving
to Hakodosh Boruch Hu. In other words, he is a person so involved with
the
physical world that he has no vision of anything greater, beyond
himself; he
has no vision of the stars beyond his limited four walls and has no
spiritual aspirations.
We need the desire to go beyond ourselves. If we do not reach our goal,
explains Rav Dessler, it is not because we are incapable of
improvement, but
because we have lost faith in ourselves and in our ability to reach the
stars.
The Torah gives us examples of contrasting individuals, explains
Chazal. Noach
began as a righteous man, a man who walked with God. But, after the
flood, he
became a man of the earth. For whatever reason (and many reasons can be
given),
Noach lost his vision and no longer walked with God always beside him.
In
contrast, Moshe is first described as an ish mitzri, an
Egyptian, not a
very spiritual human being. But he searched for God throughout his
life, and at
his death, Hashem Himself calls him an ish Elokhim, a man of
God. As the
Sabba of Kelm explains, it all lies in our vision and in our
striving to
reach the stars.
We are called upon to be continuously moving, going, striving to
achieve our
mission and actualizing the vision of our spiritual selves so that it
is in
synch with our physical selves, so that our heavenly name corresponds
to our
earthly name, and Hashem can refer to us by calling our name twice, as
He
called to the great Avraham Avraham, Moshe Moshe and Shmuel Shmuel
writes Rabbi
Frand in An Offer You Can’t
Refuse. And how are we to move in the right direction? Rabbi Wolbe
in Aleh
Shor cites the verse from Isaiah, “The
House of Jacob, come let us walk in the light of Hashem.”
Rabbi Wolbe laments that we have lost
the will to walk in the light of Hashem, instead immersing ourselves in
the
physical moment. We settle for the Kodak moment and the thrill of the
latest
technology instead of striving to reach beyond, to the spiritual
heights
symbolized by the stars.
The light of the sun must enter our succah, but it cannot be so
overwhelming
that it blinds us, writes the Tallelei Chaim. Rashi
states that
we cannot limit ourselves so fully that that no light enters the succah
of the
physical world. The rays must be able to penetrate the schach. We
must
achieve a balance between the spiritual and the practical. Our
spiritual vision
must be achievable and practical, for we still live in a physical body
in a
physical world. The only criteria that either impede us or impel
us
toward our spiritual goal, as so many of the Baalei Mussar
point out, is
the strength of our desire. Rabbi Wolbe wants us to ask ourselves what
is your
core desire. Do you envision yourself as a person of total truth and
integrity,
or as a person committed to chesed, to performing acts of
loving
kindness, or as a teacher of Torah? Then follow that vision of
yourself. If you
have enough passion to this calling, Hashem will help you achieve your
goal.
So the Tallelei Chaim urges us to move out of the comfort zone
of our
permanent homes into the succah where the schach will provide
comfortable shade
under Hashem’s
personal hand, while still allowing us glimpses into the bright light
of
holiness that exists both in the darkness of the world and in the
daylight. The
succah experience can bring us back to the faith and hope our nation’s
youth had as we
followed Hashem in the wilderness, the faith and hope of children who
believe
in the possible and for whom no ceiling limits them. The succah
embraces us,
and the schach lets our vision fly to the heavens and bring Hashem’s
support to
achieve our goals.