Nature's Calling: The Call of the Sukkah

Eons ago, I was part of the first graduating class of the CUNY Honors College, which has since become the Macaulay Honors College. I had a professor there named Jerry Colonna who was a successful venture capitalist, turned life coach. I remember him sharing that periodically, he'd go on meditation retreats, leaving behind phone and laptop, only to be with himself in nature, without artifice, mediation or technological connectivity whatsoever. 

At the time, I thought him strange. After all, he was supposedly very successful, and as an observant Jew, I could pray three times a day, and didn't need to go to Tibet, or any other far-off place for clarity of mind, and/or purpose. 

Come to think of it though, in a certain respect, more than anything the holiday of Sukkot represents a sort of "Call of the Wild," or a return to deeper-seeded root. The holiday is the most important holiday of the year, as evidenced firstly by the sheer number of sacrifices ordered on each and every day, which more than anything bespeaks its centrality, and furthermore, the entirety of the month in which it takes places is referred to as a whole as the first and foremost of all months: "This month shall be for you the foremost month of the year, the first of the months of the year (Shemot 12:2)." 

In other words, the whole month is one big, and long Rosh Hashana, or in other words, the sequence of events and holidays they encapsulate from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur and then Sukkot, which is capped off with Shemini Atzeret all signify one, single progression. 

And what is the essence of the holiday? The simple recognition that we're not in charge. That Hashem's hand in nature, which we envelop ourselves in on Sukkot, is the only thing that matters in our lives. We know we can weather any storm, succeed in the face of any travail and surmount any difficulty when we leave our homes, the place of greatest security and enter the realm of the greatest insecurity, the great outdoors. To experience this mean feat, we use the simplest, most basic and unprocessed materials, the sunbaked and dried vines, and old stalks of wheat, literally - anything at our disposal. We return to a world of minimalism - and no, we don't have to go to Tibet, or enter a state of silence and solace, but rather, rejoice, uncork the wine, serve delicacies, taking out our finest dishware and cutlery because we know that it's the simple recognition that Hashem is protecting us that is giving us all of our shefa and plenty, and that everything good is rooted in Him alone. 

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