30 Sep HAAZINU/SUKKOT: A WEEK IN EXILE

At a black-tie affair, all
the guests are wearing
tuxedos or expensive
gowns. They all look
pretty much the same.
But there are two groups of
people at this affair. One group, when
they go home, hang up the tuxedo or
gown in the closet. The other group
returns it to the gemach or wherever
they had borrowed it from.
One Rabbi used this example to
describe the two groups of people in the
synagogue on Yom Kippur. Everyone is
there, everyone is praying, but there’s a
big difference. Some people keep the
“tuxedo,” the devotion they showed on
Yom Kippur, with them the whole
year. But other people “bring it back”
right after Yom Kippur, and don’t keep
it with them…
This is one of the purposes of the
holiday of Sukkot.

The Midrash tells that the reason why
we celebrate Sukkot right after Yom
Kippur is because as we were judged on
Yom Kippur, it may have been decreed
that we must be punished with
exile. Our residence in
the sukkah during the week of Sukkot
serves as our “exile” so we will not
really have to go into exile.
Really? This is the purpose of Sukkot?
What if it was decreed that we will
endure some other form of
punishment? Why was the Torah
concerned only about a decree of exile?!
Exile is an experience of instability and
vulnerability. A person in exile feels
unsafe. He doesn’t have a home, and
he’s among foreign people in a foreign
land speaking a foreign language. He
feels vulnerable. He feels unprotected.
This is what the experience of
the sukkah is supposed to be. We leave
the stability and comfort of our homes

and live in a fragile structure, where we
feel vulnerable. This experience is to
remind us of our dependence on
Hashem, that we rely completely on
him, that we are not independently
capable as we might at times think.
And this might be the meaning of the
Midrash – that we go into the sukkah in
order to experience “exile.”
One of the main purposes of this entire
season is to remind us that we are
dependent on Hashem. It reminds us
that Hashem is the judge over the world
and He decides what our lives will be,
and this in turn reminds us that we must
live the right way and pray to Him in
order to receive what we need and what
we want. The period of judgment is
followed by Sukkot to ensure that the
“’tuxedo” stays with us, and isn’t
brought back; to make sure that this
feeling of dependency doesn’t disappear
after the end of Yom Kippur, that we

keep it with us throughout the rest of
the year.
As we sit in the sukkah with our
families, let us use this opportunity to
remind ourselves of our vulnerability,
that we are totally dependent on
Hashem, and this will help ensure that
throughout the rest of the year, we will
live with the proper focus, recognizing
our responsibilities to Hashem and
trying our best to fulfill them, each and
every day.