Arieh Ben Gurion
Commandments for the Sukkah
Sitting in the Sukkah, leaving the permanent home for a temporary home has many reasons.
The first – to remember leaving Egypt and the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the desert for forty years, and there they sat in tabernacles It is possible that the Sukkah is to remind us that man must remember at a time of his wealth also poverty, in the days of his glory to remember his despicableness, in his greatness to remember when he was a simple man, in days of peace – the danger of war, over the earth – the storms of the sea and the town – to remember the desert. As you have nothing that shall make you happier than the good days being more numerous than the bad days.
Sitting in the Sukkah therefore teaches man a good criterion: to be happy with what he has. In a small and modest Sukkah covered only with green leaves – there he shall fulfil the commandment of the joy of the festival.
The Sukkah is also called “the tabernacle of peace” and is symbolizes the peace of humanity. During the festival of Sukkot they would sacrifice, when the Temple existed, seventy bulls for the seventy nations of the world, as a symbol of the tabernacle of peace between Israel and the other nations of the world.