Sukkah and the Senses
When God tells you to build a sukkah, you don’t ask why - you just ask how high. Or at least, that’s how the talmudic tractate Sukkah begins.
סוּכָּה שֶׁהִיא גְּבוֹהָה לְמַעְלָה מֵעֶשְׂרִים אַמָּה — פְּסוּלָה… וְשֶׁאֵינָהּ גְּבוֹהָה עֲשָׂרָה טְפָחִים… — פְּסוּלָה.
“A sukkah that is more than twenty cubits high is unfit.. One that is not ten handbreadths high…is unfit.”
A cubit is about 18 inches, and a tefach (handbreadth) is about 3.5 inches. (As an aside, here is a fascinating academic look at the tefach.) So, roughly speaking, for those of us still thinking in terms of feet rather than meters, according to this teaching a sukkah shouldn’t be shorter than 3 feet and shouldn’t be taller than 15 feet. Let’s assume we all understand why a 3 ft high sukkah might cause problems (unless used as a toddler’s autumnal play fort).
But why would we need a maximum height when building a sukkah? This isn’t an issue of structural integrity, but rather a question of ritual integrity, according to the sage Rabba:
אָמַר רַבָּה, דְּאָמַר קְרָא: ״לְמַעַן יֵדְעוּ דוֹרוֹתֵיכֶם כִּי בַסּוּכּוֹת הוֹשַׁבְתִּי אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל״, עַד עֶשְׂרִים אַמָּה, אָדָם יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁהוּא דָּר בַּסּוּכָּה, לְמַעְלָה מֵעֶשְׂרִים אַמָּה — אֵין אָדָם יוֹדֵעַ שֶׁדָּר בַּסּוּכָּה, מִשּׁוּם דְּלָא שָׁלְטָא בַּהּ עֵינָא.
Rabba said that it is derived as the verse states: “So that your future generations will know that I caused the children of Israel to reside in sukkot when I took them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43). Up to twenty cubits high, a person knows that they are residing in a sukkah. More than twenty cubits high, a person does not know that they are residing in a sukkah because their eye does not catch sight (of the roof). (Talmud Bavli, Sukkot 2a)
Sukkot is a holiday about tangible awareness - both of the world around us and the sukkah itself which only partially encloses us within its shelter. In this time when questions swirl about artificial intelligence and what it uniquely means to be human, this talmudic passage suggests to me that we begin this year with the intention of being sensuous humans whose limitations return us to awareness. We are embodied creatures who see, hear, smell, taste, and touch our way around the world (to varying degrees). Some even describe a sixth sense, proprioception, which is “your body’s ability to sense its own position and movements in space” (example: touching your nose with your eyes closed. How did you know where your nose was??)
Yom Kippur, as a day of cleansing, restricts some of the senses, and days later Sukkot drenches us in sensory awareness, in a new type of knowing - through the sukkah itself, through waving the etrog and lulav, through the subversive and earthy insights of Kohelet / Ecclesiastes, who yearns for a Big Idea but keeps returning to simple pleasure as the way to walk life’s path.
Meditation teacher Tara Brach writes: “We experience our lives through our bodies whether we are aware of it or not. Yet we are usually so mesmerized by our ideas about the world that we miss out on much of our direct sensory experience. Even when we are aware of feeling a strong breeze, the sound of rain on the roof, a fragrance in the air, we rarely remain with the experience long enough to inhabit it fully.” (Radical Acceptance)
When you enter a sukkah - yours, or a friend’s, or the one you imagine as you read this - look up at the roof and remember that you inhabit not only the booth, but your body as well. In this way, when we leave the house and enter the hut, we end up coming home.
Shabbat shalom, and chag sameach!
Rabbi Jay Levine
