50 | OCTOBER 17 • 2024 J
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here is something very strange 
about the festival of Sukkot. On 
the one hand, it is the festival 
supremely associated with joy: “
And 
you shall rejoice before the Lord your 
God seven days” Lev. 23:40
In the Torah as a whole, joy is men-
tioned not at all in relation to Rosh 
Hashanah, Yom Kippur or Pesach, 
once in connection with Shavuot and 
three times in connection with Sukkot. 
Hence Sukkot’s name: 
Z’man Simchatenu, the 
festival of our joy.
Yet, what it recalls is 
one of the more negative 
elements of the wilder-
ness years:
“You shall live in 
booths seven days; all 
citizens in Israel shall live in booths, so 
that future generations may know that I 
made the Israelites live in booths when 
I brought them out of the land of Egypt, 
I the Lord your God.
” Lev. 23:42-43
For 40 years, the Israelites lived with-
out permanent homes, often on the 
move. They were in the wilderness, in 
no-man’s land, where it is hard to know 
what to expect and what dangers lie in 

wait along the way. The people certainly 
lived under Divine protection. But they 
could never be sure in advance whether 
it would be forthcoming and what form 
this protection might take. It was a pro-
longed period of insecurity.
How then are we to understand the 
fact that Sukkot of all festivals is called 
Z’man Simchatenu, the festival of our 
joy? It would have made sense to call 
Pesach — freedom’s birthday — the fes-
tival of joy. It would have made sense to 
call Shavuot — the day of revelation at 
Sinai — the festival of joy. 
But why give that title to a festival 
that commemorates 40 years of expo-
sure to the heat, cold, wind and rain. 
Remembering that, why should we feel 
joy?
Besides which, what was the miracle? 
Pesach and Shavuot recall miracles. 
But traveling through the wilderness 
with only temporary homes was nei-
ther miraculous nor unique. That is 
what people who travel through the 
wilderness do. They must. They are on 
a journey. They can only have a tem-
porary dwelling. In this respect, there 
was nothing special about the Israelites’ 
experience.

It was this consideration that led 
Rabbi Eliezer to suggest that the sukkah 
represents the Clouds of Glory, ananei 
kavod, that accompanied the Israelites 
during those years, sheltering them 
from heat and cold, protecting them 
from their enemies, and guiding them 
on the way. This is a beautiful and imag-
inative solution to the problem. It iden-
tifies a miracle and explains why a festi-
val should be dedicated to remembering 
it. That is why Rashi and Ramban take 
it as the plain sense of the verse.
But it is difficult, nonetheless. A 
sukkah looks nothing like the Clouds 
of Glory. It would be hard to imagine 
anything less like the Clouds of Glory. 
The connection between a sukkah and 
Clouds of Glory comes not from the 
Torah but from the Book of Isaiah, refer-
ring not to the past but to the future:
“Then the Lord will create over all 
of Mount Zion and over those who 
assemble there a cloud of smoke by 
day and a glow of flaming fire by night; 
over everything the glory will be a can-
opy. It will be a sukkah for shade from 
heat by day, and a shelter and hiding 
place from the storm and rain.
” Is. 4:5-6
Rabbi Akiva dissents from Rabbi 

Eliezer’s view and says that a sukkah is 
what it says it is: a hut, a booth, a tem-
porary dwelling. What, according to 
Rabbi Akiva, was the miracle? There is 
no way of knowing the answer. But we 
can guess.
If a Sukkah represents the Clouds 
of Glory — the view of Rabbi Eliezer 
— then it celebrates God’s miracle. If it 
represents nothing other than a Sukkah 
itself — Rabbi Akiva’s view — then it 
celebrates the human miracle of which 
Jeremiah spoke when he said:
“Thus said the Lord, “I remember 
the devotion of your youth, how as a 
bride you loved Me and followed Me 
in the wilderness, through a land not 
sown.
” Jer. 2:2
The Israelites may have complained 
and rebelled. But they followed God. 
They kept going. Like Abraham and 
Sarah, they were prepared to journey 
into the unknown.
If we understand this to be the mir-
acle, we can infer a deep truth about 
faith itself. Faith is not certainty. Faith 
is the courage to live with uncertainty. 
Almost every phase of the Exodus was 
fraught with difficulties, real or imag-
ined.

HANDLING THE UNKNOWN
That is what makes the Torah so 
powerful. It does not pretend that life 
is any easier than it is. The road is 
not straight, and the journey is long. 
Unexpected things happen. Crises 
suddenly appear. It becomes import-
ant to embed in a people’s memory 
the knowledge that we can handle the 
unknown. God is with us, giving us 
the courage we need.
Each Sukkot it is as if God were 
reminding us: Don’t think you need 
solid walls to make you feel safe. I led 
your ancestors through the desert so 
that they would never forget the jour-
ney they had to make and the obstacles 
they had to overcome to get to this 
land. He said, “I made the Israelites live 
in booths when I brought them out of 
the land of Egypt.
” Lev. 23:43 In those 
booths, fragile and open to the ele-
ments, the Israelites learnt the courage 
to live with uncertainty.
Other nations told stories that cele-

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

