by Rabbi Leead Staller
While we have all gotten used to our hyper-localized routines of religious practice – as New York Jews living in the 21st-century – it is often enlightening to think about how Judaism played out in past generations. For example, while we in the city are used to scrounging around for communal Sukkahs, and those of us reading this in the suburbs have it down to a routine with our prefab and pop up Sukkahs, what did Sukkot look like in the time of the Temple?
One question that some of the later Talmudic commentaries discuss is whether the Temple site itself had Sukkahs on it for the Kohanim to eat sacrifices and offerings in. The bible seems to indicate as much, as Nechemiah describes the Jewish people celebrating Sukkot by “making Sukkot in the courtyards of God’s house” (8:16). That said, it’s ambiguous where exactly that refers to, as it might not mean the actual Temple site itself. The Talmud (Erchin 3b), though, seems to support the need for priestly Sukkahs, as it establishes that Kohanim were in fact obligated to eat in a Sukkah whenever they were not in the middle of performing Avodah, temple service.
While this evidence seems to indicate that Kohanim needed Sukkahs, R’ Mishulam Dovid Soloveitchik, Rosh Yeshiva of Brisk, points out a difficulty that arises in figuring out how they could have possibly built them. Rambam (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 1:9), followed by many later authorities, rules that no construction or building was allowed on the Temple site, including even temporary wooden structures. The Panim Yafot (R. Pinchas Horowitz, 18th c. Germany) quotes a Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni Shoftim) that seems to say explicitly that a Sukkah is forbidden on the Temple site. If that’s the case, how could it be that Kohanim were obligated in the Mitzvah of Sukkah whenever they were not performing Temple service, but that they were barred from ever building a Sukkah in the Temple? Isn’t that dooming them to not fulfill their Mitzvah?
R’ Yitzchak Yehudah Schmilkes (Beit Yitzchak Moadim 45) tries to answer this question by claiming that the act of eating offerings and sacrifices itself qualifies as “Temple service,” so, in effect, Kohanim would always be exempt from needing a Sukkah while on duty. However, this is not supported by much evidence, and one Gemara in particular (Pesachim 68b) seems to directly refute this claim, implying that eating is not Temple service. So how did the Kohanim fulfill their obligation to eat in a Sukkah, if no Sukkahs were allowed on the Temple site?
I think to answer this, we have to return to the very purpose of the Sukkah itself. The Torah tells us that the reason we dwell in Sukkot is to commemorate God’s protection in the desert. The Gemara records a debate as to whether our Sukkahs commemorate actual physical structures that protected the Jewish people, or rather, God’s clouds of glory that served as protection. The Vilna Gaon explains that, according to this latter position, the Sukkahs we build parallel the Mishkan, the Tabernacle that was built in the desert, as God’s clouds of glory rested upon the Mishkan. Similarly, we build our own model of a Mishkan for God’s clouds of glory to rest upon. This also explains why Sukkot is celebrated on the 15th of Tishrei, despite God protecting the Jews every day they were in the desert. The Vilna Gaon explains that the 15th of Tishrei is when they started construction of the Mishkan, and thus, the first day the clouds of glory came down upon the Jewish people. This idea is also hinted to repeatedly in the Talmud, as multiple laws about the size and structure of the Sukkah are learned from the dimensions and rules of the Mishkan, implying a connection between the two. Thus, we arrive at a theory of Sukkah that is rooted in the idea of recreating a personal temple, a Mishkan or Mikdash Ma’at, in our own homes in an attempt to remember and recreate God’s presence resting upon the Temple.
Given this explanation of Sukkah, I think we can answer our initial question. How can it be that Kohanim are obligated to eat in a Sukkah if they can’t build a Sukkah on the Temple site? According to our analysis, the Kohanim don’t need to build anything to fulfill the Mitzvah of eating in a Sukkah. If a Sukkah is supposed to be a homemade model of the Mishkan, the temple that the Jewish people built in the desert, then surely the actual Temple itself is the platonic ideal of a Sukkah! Thus, the Kohanim are surely discharging their obligation to eat in a Sukkah by eating in the Temple, as the Kohanim in the Temple get the actual experience our home Sukkahs are merely trying to emulate– namely, eating in a Temple-like structure surrounded by God’s presence.
What we are left with is a model of Sukkot that is drastically different from the light-hearted Sukkah-hopping holiday we are all familiar with. After Yom Kippur– a holiday where all of the action takes place in the Temple itself– Sukkot gives us an opportunity to take the awe and inspiration of the Temple and its ritual back into our own homes. Thus, through recreating our own mini-Temples at home, we are given a week to process and internalize the inspiration of Yom Kippur, as we try to make our Sukkahs, and thereby, the religious experience and inspiration of the High Holy Days, as familiar and a part of us as our own homes. However, Sukkot is inherently limited. After 7 days, we are forced to leave our Sukkahs for Shemini Atzeret– a holiday with no flashy Mitzvot or physical structures. This serves as a reminder that the religious highs of Yom Kippur, and the inspiration that comes with the intimacy and grandeur of the Temple, is inherently limited. We cannot live in a Sukkah the rest of the year. The most we can hope for is to take this week of Sukkot, and use it as a time of reflection and internalization, as we work to take the moments of seriousness and inspiration from Yom Kippur and use them to motivate us into a great new year!
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