"A Temporary Hut That We Still Bother To Decorate"
Sukkot, Hiddur Mitzvah, & The Art Of Impermanence
Before we begin, a quick primer on sukkot from MyJewishLearning.com:
“Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is named after the booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) in which Jews are supposed to dwell during this week-long celebration. According to rabbinic tradition, these flimsy sukkot represent the huts in which the Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after escaping from slavery in Egypt. The festival of Sukkot is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (chaggim or regalim) of the Jewish year.”1
For more learning, check out this BimBam video that is taught by lego characters.
As the holiday of sukkot approached (it is now here!) I was thinking what how to teach its main ideas to my students. I wanted them to learn about the lulav and etrog. I wanted them to learn about how the holiday is an ode to the fall harvest. I wanted them to get in touch with nature as well as the biblical narrative – we dwelt in booths as we wandered through the desert, etc. But maybe most importantly, I wanted them to understand the beauty of creating a sukkah. It is the concept of impermanence that has always struck me as the most spiritually significant of this holiday. The beauty that can only be found in celebrating the temporary.
On this topic, my teacher and friend Rachel Brodie z”l wrote in her blog,
“Sit in the sukkah, that symbol of our ambivalent relationship to our transient presence—a temporary hut that we still bother to decorate—and remember your gratitude from the fish and the gourd, remember your resolve from times of desperation and resolve that comes from your desires, remember that penance is accepted when it is offered, and pleasure needs to be taken when it can be found.”2
It is that em dashed phrase, “a temporary hut that we still bother to decorate,” that jumps out at me as a meta statement about what it means to be alive at all. Is not everything sort of ‘“temporary hut?” An attempt to shelter ourselves from our inevitable death?
Our relationships are temporary huts. They keep us warm and gathered and help us know where we belong. But our relationships can collapse under too much rain. Even in the best case scenarios, relationships lot of maintenance. Or, our relationships span the full lengths of our lives, and only when the first person dies is the hut carefully taken down (of course we are still in relationship with those who have died but I’m trying to make a bigger point to just go with it).
Our salaries and savings are temporary huts. Unlike the ancient Egyptians, we Jews don’t believe you can take it with you when you die.
Our hobbies are temporary huts in the wilderness of fidgeting and anxiety.
Our bodies are temporary huts for our souls. Our lifetime, that which we call our “life,” is a temporary, organic, humble dwelling, like a sukkah.
And yet, “We still bother to decorate.” Why do we still bother to decorate?
Jewish tradition teaches a concept called, hiddur mitzvah, “beautifying the commandment.” This concept says it’s not just what you do but how you do it. Beautiful content should be matched by beautiful form. This is why we might have hand painted candle sticks for shabbat, embroidered chuppah coverings, and bedazzled mezzuzot.
Hiddur mitzvah comes into our tradition through various texts, but my favorite of these is Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 133b:5-6:
“What is the source for the requirement of: “This is my God and I will glorify Him”? As it was taught in a baraita with regard to the verse: “This is my God and I will glorify Him [anveihu], the Lord of my father and I will raise Him up.” The Sages interpreted anveihu homiletically as linguistically related to noi, beauty, and interpreted the verse: Beautify yourself before Him in mitzvot. Even if one fulfills the mitzva by performing it simply, it is nonetheless proper to perform the mitzva as beautifully as possible. Make before Him a beautiful sukkah, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful ritual fringes, beautiful parchment for a Torah scroll, and write in it in His name in beautiful ink, with a beautiful quill by an expert scribe, and wrap the scroll in beautiful silk fabric.”
Making something beautiful is not frivolous but a way to connect to the Divine – a form of prayer. Making something beautiful shows gratitude for the life we have been given. Making something beautiful is a microcosmic statement on how want to live – how we build our sukkah is how we build our life.
Note: the Talmud does not stipulate what beautiful means. Beauty still lies in the eye of the beholder.
When I was thinking about teaching my students about sukkot, I realized in some ways it is similar to Christmas or the process of Tibetan sand-painted mandala making. Whether hanging ornaments on a sukkah or freshly cut noble fir, we are creating immersive, at-home art installations that are inviting and unique. We still bother to decorate. The monks who make the sand-painted mandalas don’t say, “What’s the point, I’m just gonna deconstruct it later.” The entire point is the making of it. The point is the marveling at it as it unfolds. And yes, the point is also that we will eventually wipe it away.
But wow, when the sukkah is up and you get to sit inside and hear the schach rustle in the wind. Wow, when the Christmas tree is all sparkly with lights, popsicle stick ornaments, and memories of years past. Wow, when the mandala is complete – so delicate and vibrant. What pleasure we can take in these creations!
Like Rachel wrote, “Pleasure needs to be taken when it can be found.”
When we decorate the sukkah we are conscious of impermanence – our own impermanence – but choose beauty over apathy and despair. When we beautify the sukkah, we show gratitude for all the gorgeous experiences life has given us.
So how did my teaching about impermanence go with my students? Maybe too well. We made some very unstable paper chains (out of recycled paper) to decorate a make-shift sukkah. These festoon tore almost as soon as they were hung and fell to the ground. “Oh well,” I said. “Consider this a really quick example of sukkot.” My student’s didn’t seem to mind too much. It was still fun – to bother to decorate.
PS: Yes I wrote an entire piece about impermanence and sukkot without mentioning Kohelet. It’s in the background.
PPS: Here are some images from one my favorite artists, Andy Goldsworthy – a sculptor of impermanence. Look him up. May his art bless you forever.
Sukkot 101. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/sukkot-101/
Rachel Brodie, How Long Will This Last? https://www.rachelbrodie.net/blog. September 26, 2017.