Yesterday We Were Angels; Today Let Us Be Human

On Yom Kippur we live for twenty-five hours in an almost unhuman way: no eating, drinking, washing, leather shoes or marital relations (Yoma 8:1). Even “Baruch Shem kevod malchuto” is said aloud, following the tradition cited by the Tur that on this day Israel resembles the ministering angels (Orach Chaim 619). For one day the body becomes quieter and the soul becomes easier to hear.

Then, only five days later, Sukkot arrives. Instead of extending the withdrawal, the Torah says, “You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days” (Leviticus 23:42), and the sages explain: “dwell as you live” (Sukkah 28b). We eat, drink, learn, talk, host and even sleep inside the space of the mitzvah.

At first this seems opposite to Yom Kippur. If we discovered the spirit when the body stepped back, why does Torah return us so quickly to the body? Perhaps because God never asked us to become angels. He already has angels. Torah was given specifically to human beings who have money, anger, family, fatigue, ego, desire, work and an evil inclination.

The sages describe the angels asking at Sinai: “What is one born of woman doing among us?” Moses answers: Did you descend to Egypt? Do you have an evil inclination? What will you do with “do not steal,” “do not commit adultery,” or “honor your father and mother”? (Shabbat 88b–89a). Torah belongs to human beings not despite the struggle, but because the struggle is where choice is born.

Maimonides warns against the idea that holiness means forbidding ourselves every pleasure. A person who turns withdrawal from the world into a total ideal is not necessarily holier; Maimonides calls such an approach, when universalized, “a bad path” (Laws of Human Dispositions 3:1). He then sets out another principle: “Know Him in all your ways.” Eating, sleeping, work and bodily life can all become directed toward serving God (3:2–3).

That may be the movement from Yom Kippur to Sukkot. On Yom Kippur we learn to say “no” to the body. On Sukkot we learn to say “yes” without becoming its slaves. Not to fast all year, but to let fasting teach us how to eat. Not to run away from money, but to learn to earn and spend it honestly. Not to run away from home in order to be spiritual, but to turn the home into a place of peace, kindness and attention.

“Dwell as you live” is almost a foundational statement: do not visit God only during prayer. Live with Him. Bring Him into the dinner table, the conversation with a spouse, the phone you put down when a child wants to speak, the business deal where cutting a corner would be easy, and the moment someone hurts you and you possess the perfect answer with which to crush them.

It is easier to be an angel for one day when life stops. It is harder to be a Torah-shaped human being on an ordinary Tuesday in Cheshvan. That is where we discover whether prayer left the synagogue and entered life.

Yom Kippur says: I have a body, but I am not only my body. Sukkot adds: I have a body, and therefore I have something to sanctify. The goal is not that the spirit remain in heaven. The test is whether it is strong enough to enter matter without disappearing inside it.

Yesterday we were a little like angels. Today let us be human, but human beings whose feet stand on the earth while their souls still remember the heavens.