ESSAY: Beyond Self Improvement (Sukkot)

How do we move from the High Holiday season to Sukkot?  What is the shift involved and how can we inhabit the new Sukkot mindset?

Letting Go of the Self Improvement Project

Maybe we can start by becoming aware of the massive self improvement project we have just been involved in these past 5 plus weeks, from the beginning of Elul through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The goal throughout this period has been teshuva – repentance, return, transformation, improvement, continually asking how we can fix ourselves, how we can do better.

There is certainly nothing wrong with this orientation.  It is necessary and helpful to our unfolding and becoming who we need to become.  And for many of us, it is not just an Elul and Tishrei thing, but a way of life, a way of trying to evolve ourselves and the world into a better place.  

We are so deeply engrossed in this self improvement project, both consciously and unconsciously — wanting to be different, to improve, to fix ourselves, to heal — that we don’t always recognize the hint of self aggression in this attitude, the implication that something is wrong with us, the push to not be who and where we are right now, how worn out we are by all the efforting and force, by all the control and judgment involved in this process.   

Such an orientation to change also tends to keep us oriented away from the present.  On Yom Kippur and throughout the teshuva process, we examine our past and consider how to change our future.  There is very little present in this view, always looking backward or forward, not being right here.  

From Lashuv (Change) to Leshev (Dwell)

If on the High Holidays the operative verb is lashuv, to turn, to return, to change, to move, on Sukkot, the operative verb is leshev, to dwell, to sit, to stay put, leshev basukkah, as the Sukkah brachah says.  Sukkot invites us into a new framework as an experiment: What if we pause the self improvement project and try just standing still for a few minutes?  We have spent the past month involved in the constant movement of lashuv, of change, and now we come to rest in leshev, in sitting and dwelling right here, as we are, in this life coursing through us, in this body, everything we need right here, nowhere to go, nothing to change..  

Sukkah as Divine Presence

Being present in the present connects us to the divine presence, to the shekhinah.  God is eternally present and therefore only ever accessible to us in the now.   There is a rabbinic opinion that the original sukkot that the Israelites dwelled in in the desert were the ananei hakavod, the clouds of glory.  To enter the sukkah is to enter this realm of divine presence and accompaniment, for a moment to drop all our projects and just to be here now, resting in those clouds of presence.  

Already Dwelling in God’s House

We started the season by stating this as our purpose, to dwell in God’s house.  Ahat sha’alti me’et Hashem, otah avakesh, shivti beveit Hashem.  One thing I asked for, and that one thing I seek, and that is to dwell in God’s house (Ps 27:4).  This is what we wanted all along.  But somehow maybe we got a little lost in the bakashah, in the desire, in the seeking, in the endless search, so busy looking we didn’t see that it is right here.  Becoming aware that the ache of wanting we feel holds in it this notion of lack and absence, something missing, we can pause the search and drop into a sense of presence: everything you need right here, as you are, already dwelling in God’s house, shivti beveit Hashem.  No more bakashah, no more search necessary.  Shivti, dwelling, right here.  

Spaciousness

There is a relaxing that happens with this drop into presence.  The search, the attempts to change, they all took up so much energy and effort and control.  We have been working so hard to make it happen.  We bound ourselves up in knots, like Yitzhak was bound up on the akedah, restraining ourselves, holding ourselves so tightly to make ourselves better.   But Sukkot asks us to undo the knots and unlock the doors and go outside and sit in an open breezy shelter.  There is spaciousness here.  We can breathe in this spaciousness inside ourselves, becoming this open sukkah ourselves, like the annanei hakavod, like a cloud, soft, not rigid, lots of air circulating through us.  Let the breeze of the sukkah blow through you and undo the tightness of all that striving, how hard we have worked to improve.  All of that effort is great, but on Sukkot, just for a short time, we are trying something different, experimenting with not being a project, not trying to fix ourselves all the time, relaxing all that effort, and resting and dwelling, as we are, in the divine spaciousness of the sukkah.  

No More Distinctions

Throughout this season we have been so engrossed in making distinctions, separating and sorting out what is right and what is wrong, who will live and who will die.  Mi yihyeh umi yamut.  Some in and some out.  In order to improve, we needed to know both what to reject and what to embrace.  But maybe we can try, just for the span of this holiday, to dwell in the open atmosphere of the Sukkah – to stop sorting our experience into good and bad, desirable and undesirable, and to open the doors wide to include all of life and everyone.   We were in our closed up homes, and now we step outside to a sukkah that is wide open to the air and to the rain and to all the visitors, the ushpizin, alive and dead – no distinction – all welcome in this open air arena.  

Open to Everyone

We become like Avraham’s tent, open on all four sides, open to any passing visitors, whoever they are, both physical visitors who enter our physical sukkah and more wispy wandering visitors of the spirit who enter our internal sukkah, visitors like anger or jealousy or fear or sadness.  We welcome them all.  We become, like Avraham, the consummate host.  We become the spaciousness of the sukkah in which all of life is welcome.   We don’t try to control our environment by only letting in the friendly-looking visitors.   We are past judgment and distinction, right and wrong; we are simply dwelling, leshev, simply living, inhabiting this life, embodying the teeming aliveness of this moment exactly as it is.  

Lulav and Etrog – All Types

It’s like the lulav and etrog.  We bring together these four species on Sukkot and some of them are better looking than others.  Some are perfect, like the etrog, shiny and beautiful, tasting and smelling delicious.  And some, like the aravot, are bedraggled and spindly, having no taste and no smell at all.  We have internal parts like this, too, some we are proud of for their shininess and others we are ashamed of and try to hide.  On Sukkot we don’t make distinctions, all part of this churning aliveness, all welcome, all gathered in, like the produce on this hag ha’asif, this harvest holiday of gathering.  

Becoming a Sukkah

We can open ourselves like a breezy sukkah and allow in whatever emotional visitors are here, perhaps a twinge of sadness or anxiety or overwhelm or something else, maybe a numbness of not feeling anything. It’s all ok. We practice welcoming whoever is there without judgment, without saying – this is wrong or I need to fix this – inhabiting the host-like spaciousness of the sukkah, being the host, being the awareness that holds them all.  We are not trying lashuv, to turn away from anything, but just leshev, to dwell in it, to accept it, to welcome it with no idea of changing it.   You are this wide open sukkah, a spacious place of presence where all is welcome inside you.  

Joy

And maybe out of all of this openness and inclusion, some joy will spark.  Sukkot is the holiday of joy, and when the Torah describes this joy, it describes it as happening in a space of togetherness and inclusion, everyone welcome – atah uvinkha uvitekha, a whole list, you and your son and daughter, your male and female servant, the Levi, the stranger, the orphan and the widow in your gates (Deuteronomy 16:14).  All included, the good, the bad and the ugly, the aravot as well as the etrog, our fear as well as our brilliance  And somehow, out of this openness and inclusion, joy emerges, the joy of inclusion, the joy and relief of letting of all that efforting, the joy of dwelling in what is real, the joy of being alive to the fullness of this moment as it is.  

There’s a party going on in the sukkah inside you and all are invited.  The more, the merrier.  No entrance requirements.  You can let all the different emotions and parts of you feel this welcome, seeing them all held inside the spacious sukkah inside you, and sensing the joy of being whole and alive in this moment.   And maybe, as you sense this openness inside you, you can also sense how it might extend to others as well, allowing them, too, to be just as they are, welcome as they are to your sukkah party.  

Communal Sukkah

The truth is that the presence and spaciousness of the sukkah is something beyond any one of us.  It is the ananei hakavod, the clouds of divine glory.  It is a vast communal sukkah of divine consciousness that exists beyond us, eternally present, that we can tap into when we pause our self improvement projects and just “dwell,” leshev, in this life as it is.  

Photo by Amina Filkins at Pexels