Blurring the Lines

 In these fifth and sixth parshiyot of Emor, the Torah runs through many of the "biggie" holidays, not counting Pesach and Shavuot, which were discussed in the previous parasha.  These include Rosh Hashanah (1 Tishrei), Yom Kippur (or Yom HaKippurim) (beginning the night of 9 Tishrei), and then Sukkot (beginning 15 Tishrei).  And that rounds out the whole of what I believe are the Torah-mandated holidays.

I really want to build a sukkah this year.  There is something that is so cool about it, and how the Torah says directly that they are to remind "the generations" that H' "in booths housed the Children of Israel when I brought them out from the land of Egypt; I am H', your G-d."

I also love how the only other prior mention of sukkot, I believe, is when Yaakov arrives back to the Land of Israel and promptly builds booths (sukkot) for his animals.

There is obvious symbology of protection, both divine and man-made.  When we left Egypt, G-d miraculously provided us with protection - the clouds.  But today, we memorialize that with the building of sukkot, just as Yaakov, our ancestor, did even before the Exodus from Egypt.  In other words, a man-made sukkah is not a "downgrade" - not in the least bit - from the clouds which were divinely provided.  If so, there is no way the Torah would mention that Yaakov built them as well.

I have been thinking a lot about how objects in Judaica truly blur the lines between the physical and the holy.  I think about it every time I put on tefillin - that these small black boxes with leather straps, which I wind around my arm and place on my forehead, tap into spiritual power which, as Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan wrote, we can only slightly begin to understand.  But they have magnificent spiritual power nonetheless.  I'm seeing, almost for the first time, that same power associated with the sukkah, that it is not just a cool semi-outdoor house, but a real, spiritual symbol of divine protection as well, which we can build and bring down for ourselves.  That through our own efforts we can quite literally bring down the same protection and blessing which the just-freed Israelites experienced.  

So, indeed, it doesn't have to be fancy, but I really hope to build a sukkah this year and continue to blur the lines between the so-called "physical" and the spiritual.