Sukkot: 4 parts in harmony

In one of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s most famous poems, “The Four-Fold Song,” he speaks about four dimensions of our soul’s song — as an individual, as part of a nation, as part of humanity, and as part of the cosmic universe. Indeed, we each have four parts of our identity, and each aspect is given expression at different times in our life, perhaps even in different parts of our prayers over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

It is during the Sukkot holiday that all of the different parts of our identity are given attention and able to express themselves in perfect harmony. It is on Sukkot — the holiday in which we get to bask in the light of the hard work of the preceding Days of Awe — when our soul feels whole, at peace with the different parts of our self. It is through the mitzvot (commandments) of Sukkot that our soul can sing its Song of Songs.

Excerpts from “The Four-Fold Song” by Rav Kook

There are many levels of song.

Some sing the Song of their Soul. Within their own soul, they discover everything, their entire spiritual fulfillment.

Others sing the Song of their People. They are not content with the limited realm of the individual soul. It is not expansive enough, not idealistic enough. They aspire to greater heights. With sublime love, they cleave to Knesset Israel, the soul of the entire Jewish people. They sing her songs, feel her pains, and rejoice in her hopes. They contemplate her past and anticipate her future. With love and insight, they probe her spiritual essence.

Others allow their souls to expand beyond the Jewish people. They sing the Song of Humanity. They revel in the grandeur of humanity, in the majesty of its Divine image. They seek humanity’s ultimate purpose and yearn for its higher perfection. From this source of life, they draw inspiration for their thoughts and insights, their aspirations and visions.

And some reach out even higher, until they unite with the entire world, with all of God’s creatures, with all of existence. With all of them, they sing the Song of the Universe. About this lofty song, the Sages pronounced, “One who delves in Perek Shirah each day is promised a share in the World to Come.”

And some embrace all four songs together. Each song contributes its unique voice. The songs harmonize and revitalize one another. They ring out with sounds of happiness and joy, laughter and gladness, exultation and holiness. These individuals hear at all times the symphony of the four songs — the Song of the Soul, the Song of the Nation, the Song of Humanity, and the Song of the Universe.

Their complete union becomes a song of holiness. It is the song of God, the song of Israel in its full strength and beauty, in its truth and greatness. … It is a single song, a double song, a threefold song, and a fourfold song. This fourfold song is the Song of Songs. (Translation by RavKookTorah.org.)

Sukkot as the Four-Fold Song

Tractate Sukkah is filled with rabbinic interpretations of the biblical verses that teach the different mitzvot of the Sukkot holiday. If we listen closely to their words, we hear the harmonious melody that the rabbis heard in God’s articulation of the mitzvot.

Song of their Soul — The sages of the Talmud note something peculiar in the first words of the Torah’s verse teaching us the mitzvah of the four species. “And you shall take for yourself on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree, branches of a date palm, and boughs of a dense-leaved tree, and willows of the brook” (Leviticus 34:40). Why does the Torah add the words “for yourself”? Would it not have been sufficient to say “And you shall take on the first day…”? The Rabbis of the Talmud learn from here that each person must possess their own personal bundle; you cannot steal or even borrow from another to fulfill the mitzvah (Tractate Sukkah 41b).

Evidently, there is something deeply personal in this aspect of the holiday. One must have their own unique relationship with mitzvot, a personal relationship with God being expressed in their observance of a commandment. Each person may think or feel different things when they shake their lulav and etrog set; what is important is that they are personally fulfilling God’s will. We are each unique channels through which God comes into the world, unique manifestations of the Divine without which existence would be incomplete, and we must celebrate and cherish the unique perspective that we personally bring to the world.

In the words of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, “The day you were born is the day on which God decided that the world could no longer exist with you.” One must personally own their bundle as a demonstration of their recognition that they are a unique “chelek Eloka mima’al — aspect of God on high (Job 31:2)” in the world, as a commitment to finding personal expression and connectivity within the mitzvot of the Torah.

Song of Their People — There is a notable redundancy in the verse in which God tells us to sit in sukkot for seven days. “You shall live in sukkot for seven days; all citizens of Am Yisrael shall live in sukkot” (Leviticus 23:42). Does the first part of the verse not imply the latter? Why specify that the whole nation must sit in the sukkah after having explicitly told each individual? Because to tell each person individually is not the same as to tell the nation as a unified whole. The individual is not only an individual — “take for yourself” (34:40) — but also part of a nation — “all citizens of Am Yisrael” (23:42). The Rabbis of the Talmud state that the second half of the verse “teaches that all of the Jewish people are fit to reside in one sukkah” (Sukkah 27b). This is not only a beautiful statement of communal unity, but it also has legal ramifications which make the point all the more powerful. If all of the Jewish people were indeed to sit under one sukkah, it would be impossible for any individual Jew to have sufficient monetary stake to claim even partial ownership over the sukkah.

Consequently, the sukkah belongs to no specific Jew and is simply the sukkah of the Jewish people. Further, we learn from this that there is no mitzvah to reside specifically in one’s own sukkah; one’s obligation is fulfilled in any sukkah. If the four-species bundle was an expression of my individuality, the mitzvah of the sukkah is an expression of my being part of a nation. I fulfill the mitzvah in the sukkah of any Jew at all. This halacha (law) encourages us to be together with other Jews over the holiday, to host and be hosted. We express our identity as part of the Jewish community, part of a whole that is more than just the sum of its parts. And, indeed, we are called to consider just what it may look like for all of the Jewish people to reside in one sukkah. If we put aside the laws of physics, is that presently possible? We are invited to consider how we can bring together the disparate — geographically and ideologically — parts of our nation. Who from other parts of the Jewish people can we invite into our sukkah? On Sukkot, we long for God to “restore the fallen sukkah of David … to mend its breaches” (Amos 9:11). On Sukkot, we see ourselves as part of Am Yisrael.

Song of Humanity — In the times of the Temple, a component of the celebration of each holiday was a set of sacrifices unique to that day. While the slaughtering of animals and their being offered on the altar may seem far away from our contemporary religious observance, when we listen closely to the halachot (laws) of the different sacrifices we learn about the character of each holiday. Unique to Sukkot is the massive number of bulls that were sacrificed. Whereas on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, one bull was sacrificed, and two bulls on Pesach, Shavuot, and Rosh Chodesh (the first day of each month), on Sukkot a whopping 70 bulls were offered up on the altar. In Tractate Sukkah, Rabbi Elazar teaches that “these 70 bulls … correspond to the 70 nations of the world” (55b).

Whereas, on other holidays, the focus of our rituals are ourselves, on Sukkot there is an element of our Temple service that bears in mind all of the other nations of the world. We as Jews do not believe that we have a monopoly on a relationship with God, the Creator of the World, the King of all Kings, “the One of whom there is no comparable unity.” We in fact pray each morning, “May the nations praise You, God; may all nations praise You” (Psalms 67:6). And yet in direct contrast to the famed words of John Lennon’s “Imagine,” “Imagine there’s no countries/ it isn’t hard to do/ nothing to kill or die for/ and no religion too./ Imagine all the people/ living life in peace,” we do not believe that peace comes about through an erasure of identity. The global unity for which we strive is one that recognizes the unique value of each people, the distinct perspective and approach to God offered by each religion or tradition. We do not offer one sacrifice for all of humanity, we offer 70 sacrifices in recognition of the importance of each nation of the world.

On Sukkot, we long for — and through our sacrifices actualize in some small capacity — the words of God prophesied by Isaiah that we sing at the climax of our High Holiday services, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations” (56:7). Sukkot is a holiday in which we see and express ourselves as part of the global concert of humanity.

Song of the Universe — Finally, we return to perhaps our initial association with Sukkot — time spent out of the house, eating our meals in fresh air, sleeping under our date palm or bamboo schach (roof covering). Core to the holiday of Sukkot is time spent outside reconnecting with nature. Not only do we hold together a bundle of four plants, representing four different aspects of nature, but in the Talmud, Reish Lakish teaches us that the schach itself needs to be materials which grew from the ground. In accordance with Rebbe Eliezer’s belief that our sukkot are representations of the Clouds of Glory that protected us as we wandered in the desert, Reish Lakish draws a comparison between the schach and the mystical waters that emerged from the ground during creation. “‘And there went up a mist from the earth’ (Genesis 2:6). Just as mist [which has a composition similar to clouds] … emerges from the ground, so too [the roofing of the] sukkah … grows from the ground” (Sukkah 11b).

The sukkah is meant to draw us out of our houses, our comfortable environment, the locus of our control as humans, and to invite us to find a home in the cosmological story, to assume our place in a daily story of Divine creation and dominion in which we are part of something much bigger than humanity. “Rava said … The Torah tells us for seven whole days, leave your permanent residence and reside in a temporary residence” (Sukkah 2a). We are invited to cede the control to which we as humans cleave and see our lives as part of a cosmic symphony that God is conducting at each and every moment. Just like our schach grows naturally from the ground, so too we are the plants to which God the gardener is always tending — “Humans are the trees of the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19) — as God manicures an aesthetically perfect, pristine garden.

Throughout the High Holidays, we prayed that “every creature will understand that you are their Creator,” that every living thing will understand God’s dominion, and when we reside in our sukkah we recall and express our membership within the community of Life. On Sukkot, we spend a week outside in community with nature reconnecting to the cosmic whole of the universe of which we are a part.

Song of God — It is a single song, a double song, a threefold song, and a fourfold song. It is the Song of Songs. It is the holiday of Sukkot. For one week, we partake in an array of mitzvot, which, when brought together, allows our soul to embrace all four songs — all four dimensions of our identity — together. On Sukkot, we bring different intentions at different moments and yet all of them we intend together over the holiday. We see ourselves as individuals. and we ourselves as part of a nation that transcends individuals. We see ourselves as a nation among the community of nations, a union of diverse connections to God. And we see ourselves as part of a larger story that transcends humanity, the cosmic story of the Divine. I am an individual who is part of a nation who is part of humanity who is part of the cosmos.

On Sukkot, I embrace all four songs together. Each song contributes its unique voice. The songs harmonize and revitalize one another. They ring out with sounds of happiness and joy, laughter and gladness, exultation and holiness – “And you shall be joyous on your Sukkot festival” (Deuteronomy 16:13). This is the joy of Sukkot. This is the four-fold song. On Sukkot, I sing the Song of God.

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I am grateful to Rabbi Alex Haffetz for co-authoring this post.