Why Invest Beauty in Something That Will Soon Disappear?

Why Invest Beauty in Something That Will Soon Disappear?

There are things we postpone precisely because we assume there will be more time. We did not record Grandfather telling the family story because we would do it next time. We did not take the child on the outing they asked for because work is pressured now and next month will be calmer. We did not sit down for coffee with an old friend because, after all, we can always arrange it. We invest heavily in what we believe will remain and less in what appears temporary. Then a moment arrives when we discover that the temporary things were sometimes the most precious things we had.

Something strange happens specifically in the sukkah. The Torah commands us to leave the permanent home and dwell for seven days in a temporary structure: “You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days” (Leviticus 23:42). The sages interpret this as “dwell as you ordinarily live,” and add that a person brings fine utensils and fine bedding into the sukkah, eats, drinks, and spends time there (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 28b). In other words, the Torah does not say: since it will all be dismantled in a week anyway, make do with four walls and schach. On the contrary, within this temporary structure the sages ask us to create a life marked by dignity and beauty.

This is even more striking in the baraita: “If one decorated it with embroidered hangings and illustrated sheets, and hung in it nuts, almonds, peaches, and pomegranates... one may not make use of them until the conclusion of the final Festival day” (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 10a). People did not settle for a sukkah that was technically valid. They invested in its beauty. They took something they knew in advance would be dismantled within a few days and hung beautiful things in it. From a cold economic perspective, one could ask: why? Why invest time, effort, and beauty in a structure whose dismantling date is already known on the day it is built?

The answer is not that the sukkah is important despite being temporary. Perhaps the sukkah teaches us that temporariness is not the opposite of importance. We tend to connect value with duration: if something will last thirty years, it is worth investing in; if it will disappear next week, perhaps less so. Yet the Torah is full of things whose value is not measured by their duration. Shabbat lasts one day, yet the prophet calls it “a delight, the holy day of the Lord, honored” (Isaiah 58:13). Rashi explains “and you shall honor it” through clean clothing and by changing one's conduct in honor of Shabbat. Precisely because sacred time passes, we prepare for it and invest in it.

So too with the mitzvah of beautifying commandments. The sages derive from the verse “This is my God and I will glorify Him” (Exodus 15:2): “Beautify yourself before Him in mitzvot; make before Him a beautiful sukkah and a beautiful lulav” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 133b). Notice the example the sages choose: a beautiful sukkah. Not a building intended to stand for hundreds of years, but a structure that will soon be taken apart. Hiddur mitzvah says something profound: I do not give beauty only to things I can preserve. I give beauty even to a moment I know will pass, because its value lies in what it is now, not in the number of years I can hold onto it.

Life is full of sukkot like these. A four-year-old child asking us to sit beside the bed is a temporary situation. In a few years we may very much want that child to sit with us, while the child prefers friends. A Shabbat meal at which all the children are still at home is temporary. The years in which we can call Father and ask how he would handle a certain matter are not an unlimited contract either. We know all of this intellectually, but we behave as though the present period were permanent.

Psychology has studied an interesting phenomenon sometimes described as temporal scarcity, in which awareness that one's time with something is limited changes the way it is valued. Studies of endings have found that when people become aware that an experience is about to end, they may invest more in making use of the remaining time. Other research on savoring examines the ability to pause within a positive experience, direct attention toward it, and deepen its enjoyment and meaning rather than letting it pass almost unnoticed.

Yet in life we often do the opposite. We wait for major events in order to feel that life is happening. We wait for the wedding, the birth, the vacation, the promotion, the new house. Meanwhile thousands of ordinary evenings pass, drives with the children, simple meals, short conversations with parents, and moments that do not look important enough to preserve. Only afterward do we discover that a large part of life did not happen at the major events. It happened precisely in those moments we did not think worth decorating.

King Solomon says: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1), and later: “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The beauty of something does not require it to last forever. It can be beautiful in its time. A flower does not lose its value because it wilts. Childhood is not less important because it ends. A good period of life has not failed because it came to an end. Some things derive their very meaning from the fact that they were given to us for a certain time, and the question is not how to make them remain, but how not to miss them while they are here.

Moses, approaching the end of his life, prays: “Teach us to number our days, that we may bring a heart of wisdom” (Psalms 90:12). Wisdom of the heart begins with counting. Not because we should live in fear of the end, but because a person who imagines having endless days can waste an entire day without feeling that anything was lost. Knowing that our days are numbered does not have to create anxiety. It can create value.

This also changes the question we ask about investment. Instead of saying, “Why invest if it will end anyway?” we can ask: if it will end anyway, how do I want it to look while it is here? If my child will be eight years old for only one year, what kind of father do I want to be during that year? If our parents are still with us, which conversation do we not want to postpone? If the whole family is around the Festival table this year, are we actually sitting with them, or are we mainly occupied with preparing for the next holiday?

The beauty of the sukkah therefore teaches a way of seeing that is the reverse of our usual instinct. We tend to invest in things so that they will remain. The sukkah teaches that we can invest in something precisely because it will not remain. We hang the decoration knowing that in a week it will come down. We set the table knowing that within hours it will be cleared. We bless the moment even though we cannot keep it.

Perhaps this is one of the great gifts of Sukkot. For seven days we live inside something with a known end date, yet we are commanded to make it beautiful. Not everything that passes is trivial, and not everything that remains is important. Sometimes the most precious things in life are not the things we managed to hold onto, but the things to which we knew how to give beauty, time, and love while they were still with us.