Do Not Wait for Life to Begin
Some people live mainly in the next stage: after the pressure ends, the children grow and everything settles down. The sukkah, a temporary place in which we are commanded actually to live, reminds us that life is not a waiting room.
There is a sentence people tell themselves again and again: “We just need to get through this period.” Work is busy now, the children are small, there are debts, studies, health concerns and responsibilities. Later there will be time to live properly.
The problem is that “later” moves with us. The children grow and different challenges appear. The job changes and pressure receives a new name. A year passes and then another, while important things remain on the list marked “when I have time.”
Ecclesiastes says, “For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven,” then lists a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to build and a time to break down (Ecclesiastes 3). It does not promise a stage in which all complexity ends at once. Life itself is made of changing seasons.
Moses prays: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalms 90:12). Everyone knows theoretically that life is limited. Wisdom begins when that knowledge changes the calendar.
A person knows the children will not remain small and still says “later.” He knows his parents are aging but postpones the visit. He knows health is not guaranteed but leaves the things that give the soul life at the bottom of the list.
Sukkot is striking because we enter a place we know in advance is temporary, yet Torah tells us to live there genuinely: eat, drink, talk, learn and host. The fact that the place is temporary is not a reason not to live in it. It is precisely where we are commanded to be present.
That may be a picture of life itself. The fact that the current period is imperfect, and even passing, does not turn it into a meaningless corridor. The messy children, unfinished home, demanding work and worries are not always interruptions to life. Very often they are life.
This does not mean abandoning planning. Some things should be delayed and some times are not suited to every action. But we should ask which things we postpone because they truly require waiting, and which we postpone because we are waiting for an imaginary version of life without disturbance.
Time is not money. Money can be saved and spent later. An hour not given to a child, a loved one, Torah learning or health is not stored in an account. It is simply gone.
So perhaps the important question after Sukkot is not only what we take from the festival, but what tomorrow will receive an hour it has not received until now.
Do not wait for life to begin. It is already happening. The only way to save time is to turn it into something worth giving life to.