Sukkot: Dancing over the abyss

As we enter the final stretch of the holidays this year I find myself confronting contradictory emotions. It seems we’ve yet to achieve closure for that horrific day one year ago. On that day, everything changed. People say, “It feels like we’re still in October 2023,” and yet here we are, deep into October 2024. Here we are, once more building our sukkot.

With a sense of numbness, I ask myself whether it’s worth decorating the Sukkah this year. It feels like I’m just going through the motions. In my mind is the photo from a kibbutz in the south — a row of brightly decorated sukkot still standing behind shattered and burned out houses nine months later.

And yet…

And yet, Sukkot is the holiday called “The Time of Our Joy” (זמן שמחתינו). While other holidays are times of joy as well, Sukkot is singled out in particular by the Torah (Deuteronomy 16:15): “You shall be altogether/only joyful.” (והיית אך שמח)

But can we ever be “altogether” joyful? Is there ever a time when we are completely without other emotional states? Especially now, we feel it, as we’re facing escalating hostilities in Israel and increasing antisemitism abroad; when our nation is so polarized that the unity we felt early in the war now seems far away.

Can we really be “only joyful” at such a time? It would seem that the Torah is asking of us the impossible.

And yet, in Parashat Nitzavim, which we read the week before Rosh HaShanah, we are assured that the Torah does not ask of us the impossible:

This would seem to imply that we can indeed be “altogether joyful” despite external circumstances, and regardless of the psychological challenges.

The gift of vulnerability

The key to unraveling this seeming contradiction may lie in the little word “אך,” used by the Torah to command the observance of joy on Sukkot. While this word is usually translated as “only” or “solely” — implying exclusion of contrary states — Rav Yoel bin Nun argues that this word may not mean what we think it does. In fact, אך may be read as a shortened version of אכן (“indeed/nevertheless”).[1] It would thus have the connotation of juxtaposing seemingly contradictory phrases to bring out some hidden meaning. Rather than excluding other states, it may act to include and compare them.

Thus the phrasing of the Torah may point to a more complex reality: despite the many reasons for feeling anything but joy, you will indeed be joyful.

Perhaps this is the key to understanding a baffling passage in the Talmud (Ta’anit 8a):

Here too, we seem to have a contradiction: how can anyone be joyful in suffering? Isn’t suffering by definition the opposite of joy?

There are numerous words for “joy” in Hebrew. The particular word used here is the same as that used in the commandment of Sukkot — שמחה (simchah, joy). This type of joy is in a category all its own, and partakes of a quality beyond any bodily pleasure or emotional happiness. Rav Ish-Shalom once pointed out that only one letter differentiates the Hebrew word “simchah” (שמחה) — here translated as “joy” — from the word “tzmichah” (צמחה) which means “growth.” So perhaps a better translation of Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s statement would be “Whoever is able to grow through suffering brings salvation to the world.”

Thus, we’re commanded to be אך שמח (altogether/nevertheless joyful) on the very holiday when we are commanded to leave the safety and security of our homes and take up residence in flimsy huts roofed with greenery. The observance of Sukkot requires us to acknowledge — even rejoice in — our vulnerability, even when we are unprotected from every blast of wind and exposed to the rain. This is a joy that is anchored in the eternal, a joy that can dance over the abyss in the sure knowledge that the spirit of God hovers over the waters.

From a place where there are no answers, we glimpse the scaffolding behind reality and know that it is solid enough to support even what we have seen in the darkest times of all. In that glimpse, we find ourselves in the place where there are no questions.

May future generations know these things without having to learn them as we have learned them.

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[1] From personal correspondence. Some examples Rav Yoel brings are the following:

“ויאמר לו (=ליעקב) לבן: אך (=אכן) עצמי ובשרי אתה” (בראשית כ”ט, יד);
יעקב לבניו: “ויצא האחד מֵאִתי, וָאֹמַר אך (=אכן) טָרֹף טֹרָף, ולא ראיתיו עד הֵנה” (בראשית מ”ד, כח);
“שבעת ימים מצות תֹאכלו, אך (=אכן) ביום הראשון תשביתו שְׂאֹר מבתיכם” (שמות י”ב, טו).