What exactly is a sukkah? What is it supposed to represent?
The
question is essential to the mitzvah itself. The Torah says: “Live in
sukkot for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in sukkot
so that your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in
sukkot when I brought them out of Egypt: I am the LORD your God” (Lev.
23: 42-43). In other words, knowing – reflecting, understanding, being
aware – is an integral part of the mitzvah. For that reason, says Rabbah
in the Talmud (Sukkah 2a), a sukkah that is taller than twenty cubits
(about thirty feet or nine metres high) is invalid because when the
sechach, the “roof,” is that far above your head, you are unaware of it.
So what is a sukkah?On this, two Mishnaic sages disagreed. Rabbi Eliezer held that the sukkah represents the clouds of glory that surrounded the Israelites during the wilderness years, protecting them from heat during the day, cold during the night, and bathing them with the radiance of the Divine presence. This view is reflected in a number of the Targumim. Rashi in his commentary takes it as the “plain sense” of the verse.
Rabbi Akiva on the other hand says sukkot mammash, meaning a sukkah is a sukkah, no more and no less: a hut, a booth, a temporary dwelling. It has no symbolism. It is what it is (Sukkah 11b).
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