Starting to Live a Spiritual Life in a Non Spiritual World
© Baruch Weiner
We just had a full day of intense prayer and supplication, a day of total spirituality as angels. We now return to this world as humans, but with cleansed souls.
Even before resting from the intensity of a full day fasting and standing hours in intense prayer, we are again busy at spiritual work of a different kind. We begin building a "succah"
The hallmark of the succah is that although it can have regular walls just as any other structure, its roof has to be from branches, reeds and the like. It's made just to keep out the sun, although the rain can penetrate it, and the stars can be seen through it.
We eat there, and many sleep there, depending on the climate and safety.
In Lev. 23:41 the Torah commands us to sit in a succah for seven days. The Talmud explains that from this we see that it is a temporary dwelling and describes it as going out of our permanent dwelling into this temporary dwelling. Temporary doesn't mean that it actually has to be built that way.
In Israel many homes are built with a porch with an open or removable roof. So the walls are the same as their home. Rather it's the roof of branches that makes it quite temporary. As the Talmud says, "go out from your permanent place of residence and go into a temporary one."
