Why do we compare our sukkah with the neighbor’s sukkah?
One person builds a simple sukkah. Another invests in lighting. A third has special decorations and new furniture. Within minutes, even a mitzvah can become a competition.
We live in an age where almost everyone carries a permanent window into the edited lives of other people. We see their vacation, their home, their smiling children and the perfect meal. We do not see the argument five minutes before the picture.
Sukkot brings us back to four species that are completely different from one another. The Midrash compares them to different kinds of Jews and, instead of erasing the differences, says they should be “bound together as one bundle” (Leviticus Rabbah 30:12). The Torah does not demand that the willow become an etrog. Perhaps it does not demand that we live someone else’s life either.
Constant comparison makes a person stop asking whether his life is good and start asking whether it looks better than someone else’s. One of the great thieves of joy is not what we lack, but the constant gaze at what someone else has. Sometimes “you shall rejoice on your festival” begins with the simple decision to stop measuring our life through the neighbor’s sukkah.