LIFE IS A SUCCA:

Man's smallness and greatness (Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, The Jewish Chronicle 1926)

The succa, the principal feature of this festival, points out a moral of inestimable value. Unless this is taken to heart, the effects of both the New Year and the Day of Atonement will have proved of but a transient nature. "The succa visualizes our life." For what is the succa? A frail, temporary structure intended only for seven days. This is life. The normal span of life, the Psalmist declares, is seven decades, seven periods of 10 each - yamei shnoteinu bahem shivim shana veim begvurot shemonim shana. Under favorable circumstances, we may prolong our stay in this succa into the eighth day - Shemini Atzeret. Only in exceptional cases can we exceed these limits.

How frail is our life! It is like the succa. In fine weather, in the sunshine of health and happiness, we imagine that we are under cover, that we are perfectly sheltered. How slender is the cover! How easily we are subject to all manners of mishaps, of accidents and misfortunes, which may upset our succa, or cause it to tumble down altogether! And in the best case our succa has its time-limit. What a simple thought! Nothing in the world is plainer. And yet how we are apt to lose sight of this and forget the inevitable end. Assuredly the man who lives, strives and acts under the delusion that this life is a dirat keva - a permanent home - and not a succa, will not easily submit to the notes of warning and alarm sounded by the Shofar, to the great lessons conveyed by Yom Kippur, and will often cast to the winds the most vital moral standards and values.

At last we begin to understand the point... Posted by oj at September 24, 2002 8:55 PM
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