Sukkah: The Meeting Place for God

Having lifted the kiddush cup, blown the shofar, davenned, fasted and cried we come to the intimate time of resting in God's delightful shade. The Festival of Sukkot commences shortly. A look at some of what it brings:

“I saw the Lord,” states the prophet. 1

Throughout the long epochs and covering the globe, the goal of every God-fearing Jew has been the same; to peer at the Infinite One. Songs of yearning reach upward from the Shabbat table every week as we loftily sing of the possibility to connecting with God. Prayers reverberate throughout yeshiva study halls and shuls as Jews try to will the event into being. The longing to be touched by the Holy One is so compelling that we even celebrate those who were blessed with many opportunities to see God in their lifetimes.

On the Festival of Sukkot we welcome the dead into our ramshackle huts. Through successive evenings they come. The first to arrive is Abraham, then Isaac is welcomed, then comes Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and finally David. According to the mystic work, Zohar 2 each of these ancient ones are invited to each Sukka to bless the waiting people in them. We even recite an Aramaic formula begging the long dead to grace our table. We wait for their approach the same way as when we placed Elijah’s cup at the center of our tables at the seder and watched for his arrival.

We want their blessing because of who they were; namely people who were close to God. From the first to the last guest, each figure had an intimate relationship with God. Giving them a special designation, Ushpizin, we hunger for them to accept our invitation. Even more, we cling to the hope that part of their holy encounter will be left at our table. Perhaps a fragment, even a crumb, of their connection with the One will fall in our Sukkah and so come to us.

One of the Hasidic masters, Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Kotsk, was told of another tzadik who said that he sees all seven Ushpizin in his sukkah each year. “They come to visit me each night. It is so holy.”
Menahem Mendel could only sigh. Lifting up his eyes, he remarked: "I myself don't see them, but I nevertheless believe that our sages, of blessed memory, had the great gift of witnessing the Ushpizin come to their Sukkah. It is through this faith that I see more than they do with their eyes!"

How did they see God?

“Each of the prophets saw the Holy One, blessed be he, through a smoked glass.” 3 That is they perceived God dimly. God was not distinctly seen by Joseph, David or the others. Only Moses had an unimpeded view of God , through a clear glass. 4 There was no barrier between Moshe Rabbenu and the Lord. That is why the Holy Torah states that Moses had “rays of light” beaming from his face as he descended Mt. Sinai. The encounter left Moses aglow with Divine sparks. No other prophet was so privileged to stand that close to the One. That is why the Talmud speaks of Moses peering at God through a clear lens.

What did Moshe Rabbenu see that left him with such radiance? The Zohar 5 tells that Moses saw what the prophets saw. They all witnessed the Infinite One in His glory. Each felt the tremendous awe of standing in the presence of the Lord God. Where there is a difference is which aspect of God they beheld.

The prophets saw God’s lowest projection into the universe, what is called the Shechina. The Shechina hovered over Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and focused their lives. They felt its command and responded with utter joy. It informed their words, movements and life. The Shechina sated them with power and purpose as it covered every one of the prophets with its light. However, the Shechina is not an absolute view of the Holy One, blessed be He. It is a slightly refracted or dim view of God. That is why the Talmud tells us that all the prophets, with the exception of Moses, looked at God through this clouded or smoked lens.

What about us? We are not so privileged as to get a full view of God’s Teferet, like Moses. We may not even merit the more indistinct view of the Holy One’s Shechina like the other prophets. That is why we sit in our Sukkot on the Festival and welcome in the Ushpizin of long ago. We ask them to attend to our Sukkah. We ask their blessing and we hope they might leave some of the sparks of their holy encounters with the One.

Reb Zusia loved to be the first to arrive at the synagogue each morning. He would rise early and rush to put on his tefillin as dawn came to the world. One day Reb Zusia was late. His students grew uneasy. This was not like their master. Finally, just before noon Reb Zusia staggered in the synagogue. A worried, concerned look was on his face. Finally they prayed.

When the prayers had ended the students approached their master and asked, “Why were you so late this morning, Reb Zusia? What happened?”

Zusia answered, “I will tell you, my students. Remember the prayer, modeh ani, “I will give thanks to You….?” This morning as I began to say the modeh ani I stopped when I came to the word “You.” The thought struck me: what is “I?” And what is the “You?” Who am I? Who am I to address the You of the universe? Who am I to talk to the Craftsman of All?
“I started the prayer again and I was drowning in an infinitesimal speck of nothingness. Who am I? I am nothing to call upon the Holy One, Master of Everything-that-is. I could not go on. I could go no further. It took me the rest of the morning to just get through that prayer.”

We venerate those who have come before us. They leave behind many great gifts. They left us a path to follow. That is why we invite them, the Ushpizin, to join us during Sukkot. Yet, like Zusia and Menahem Mendel perhaps their legacy is rich enough to find the Holy One treading our own path.


1. Isaiah 6:5
2 vol. 3, 103b
3 Taanit 49b
4 Ibid.
5 Zohar 1:120a