Joy in the In-Between

There is something about Sukkot that has always felt a little mysterious to me.

We are told to be joyful.

Not simply allowed to be joyful. Not invited to seek joy if we happen to be feeling it.

We are commanded toward it.

Sukkot is known in our tradition as z’man simchateinu — the season of our joy. The Torah tells us, in describing the holiday, to rejoice. The rabbis understood this not as a passing feeling, but as something we are meant to actively enter into. (Sefaria)

And then, almost paradoxically, we are asked to leave our homes.

For seven days, we build a sukkah — a temporary dwelling with walls that do not quite protect us and a roof that is intentionally open enough for us to see the sky. We bring our beautiful things outside. We eat there. We gather there. We make it home, even while knowing it is not permanent. (My Jewish Learning)

It is a strange pairing:

Be joyful.And live temporarily.

Perhaps that is the point.

A holiday for the in-between

The story behind the sukkah is the story of a people in transition.

The Israelites had left Egypt, but they had not yet arrived in the Promised Land. They were no longer where they had been, but they did not yet know exactly where they were going.

There was wilderness.

There was uncertainty.

There were temporary dwellings.

There was a great deal that was unknown.

And every year, we recreate a little of that feeling.

We step outside our sturdy homes and into something intentionally fragile.

It can feel unsettling.

The sukkah is not meant to give us the illusion of permanence. In fact, its very construction reminds us that permanence is an illusion. The rabbis teach that during Sukkot, we make the sukkah our keva — our fixed or established dwelling — and our house our arai, our temporary one. For a week, we practice reversing what we normally think of as stable and unstable. (Sefaria)

And perhaps this is where Sukkot begins to speak to something much larger than a holiday.

Because so much of life is lived in the in-between.

Between what was and what will be.

Between an ending and a beginning.

Between the person we have been and the person we are becoming.

Between knowing and not knowing.

We tend to think we will finally be able to exhale when we arrive.

When the house is settled.

When the relationship makes sense.

When the children are okay.

When the work takes off.

When the money is there.

When the answer comes.

When we know what happens next.

But Sukkot offers another possibility:

What if we don’t have to wait?

What if joy is not something we earn once everything is secure?

What if we can make room for it now?

Joy as a practice

This is one of the things I love most about the Jewish understanding of joy.

It leaves room for agency.

There are feelings we cannot command ourselves to have. Grief cannot be wished away. Fear cannot always be reasoned with. Uncertainty does not disappear because we decide it should.

But perhaps there are ways we can practice making room for joy.

We can gather.

We can cook.

We can invite people in.

We can set a beautiful table beneath an open sky.

We can sing.

We can notice the sweetness of an apple, the smell of a citron, the changing light of autumn.

We can choose to dwell for a little while in gratitude for what is here, even when we don’t know what comes next.

The command to rejoice does not mean pretend everything is fine.

It can mean:

There is still life here. There is still goodness here. There is still something to celebrate.

A fragile roof, an open sky

I think about the roof of the sukkah often.

It has to provide shade, but it cannot completely close us in. Through the s’chach, we are meant to remain connected to the world beyond it. If we look up, we can see the sky. (My Jewish Learning)

There is something deeply beautiful about that design.

Enough shelter to rest.

Enough openness to remember that we are part of something larger.

Maybe this is what it means to live lightly.

Not to become careless.

Not to stop building beautiful homes, making plans, creating security, or caring deeply about the people and things we love.

But to remember that our structures — physical, emotional, financial, relational — can never completely protect us from change.

The sukkah teaches us to inhabit impermanence without being consumed by it.

To say:

I don’t know exactly what comes next.

And I can still set the table.

I don’t know how this story ends.

And I can still light the candles.

I am still becoming.

And I can still be here.

Come into the sukkah

Maybe this is why Sukkot comes just after the intensity of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

We have spent those days looking inward — taking stock, asking forgiveness, considering who we have been and who we want to become.

And then, almost immediately, we are sent outside.

Out of the synagogue.

Out of the house.

Out of certainty.

Into the autumn air.

Into a temporary dwelling.

Into the company of other people.

Into a commandment to rejoice.

It feels less like a demand to feel happy and more like an invitation to participate in life.

To build something, however temporary.

To decorate it.

To fill it with food.

To bring people inside.

To look up.

To notice the stars.

To practice being here.

The Israelites did not know exactly where they were going.

Neither do we.

But perhaps we were never meant to.

Perhaps the spiritual work is not to eliminate the uncertainty of the wilderness, but to learn how to live beautifully within it.

To build a little shelter.

To gather what we have.

To share it.

And, somehow, to rejoice.

Chag sameach.

May we find joy not only when we arrive, but here — in the beautiful, uncertain, temporary places where we are becoming.