In the most recent issue of Parabola (Spring 2023), Mary Lane Potter describes the whys and ways of Sukkot, including the ceremonial structure of the sukkah – the “anti-house, anti-refuge, and anti-shelter” where Jews dwell for seven days (in Israel) or eight days (in the diaspora). The sukkah symbolically reenacts the temporary lodging during the wilderness sojourn, the place between slavery and the promised land.
“We are liminal creatures, neither necessary nor impossible. We exist, but contingently. We did not come into being by necessity, and we will cease being- at least in the form we are now.”
“To dwell in a sukkah is to go beyond oneself, to open to the world, to others, to risk vulnerability, embrace uncertainty.”
“When we leave our house to dwell in a sukkah, we shatter our illusions of shelter, refuge, protection, and stability; we risk opening, openness, hospitality, connection, instability.”
“Dwelling in a sukkah, we become sojourners, we humbly embrace being on the way. We remember how fleeting and frail our existence is.”
“We eat, sleep, pray, study, and socialize in porous structures with no hard limits, no unyielding foundation, no impermeable boundary between outside and inside, in a space that is neither house nor wilderness, a space between, a liminal space where we leave behind our old ways, old habits, old haunts, and open to the world.”
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