Why do we leave our permanent home just after asking for life?
On Yom Kippur we pleaded for life. A few days later the Torah tells us to leave the protected house and move into a temporary structure: “You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days” (Leviticus 23:42).
It almost runs against human instinct. If life is so precious, we would expect to search for more walls, more security and more control. Yet the sukkah teaches that we can confuse security with walls. A person can live in a magnificent house and fear every change, while another can sit under moving s’chach and still feel held.
We spend enormous energy building systems meant to ensure that nothing will change: money, insurance, property and plans. Responsibility matters. But no system can guarantee that life will unfold exactly as planned.
After a day on which we asked for life, the sukkah teaches us how to live it: not with the illusion that everything is in our hands. Real security is not the moment when we finally build walls strong enough to prevent anything from happening. It is the ability to act responsibly while knowing that, when the walls cannot control reality, we still have Someone on whom to rely.