Raising the Fallen Sukkah

The second day of Sukkot was my father’s sixth Yartzeit. Something happened to me that night that was not very remarkable, but did however give me an opportunity to grow a bit.

We had a bunch of people over for dinner in our Sukkah, Motzei Shabbos. We had a really good time. I drank a bit too much alcohol, which I very rarely do, and towards the end of the evening I began talking about some ideas regarding Sukkot. They were thoughts that I was still in the process of organizing in my own mind. They were not old ideas that I could just spew out. They were ideas that were still in the test drive mode, and my alcohol level was a bit over the driving limit. Anyway, the bottom line is that I didn’t get my thoughts across very well.

OK, not a big deal.

What happened, however, was that later that night and for a good portion of the next day, I got into a whole pattern of insecure thinking; “What did I do? I made a fool of myself. Who do I think I am? I’m never going to speak in public again. I’m out of here…” basically, an old pattern of wanting to run away and hide after not being “successful”.

One of the realizations I had, while I was struggling with my internal judgments was; almost every time I try to formulated ideas that are new for me, I generally don’t get them across very well the first time I try. And after, almost every time I blunder my first time through I go through similar internal battles of “What was I doing? Who do I think I am? Blah, blah, blah.”

There is a distinction in developmental psychology between states of consciousness and stages of consciousness. A state is a temporary experience, something like a taste of a particular level of being. A stage, on the other hand, is a more permanent level. It’s a way of being, like a plateau that I exist on. We generally experience new states of consciousness until we begin to regularly function from that stage.

A child learning to walk will experience states of balance and be able to take a few steps until she “owns” that stage. That’s how we grow; we experience states until we then embody stages.

I remember hanging out with a friend of mine, watching his daughter first learn to walk. She took a few steps, fell, got up and gave it a few more shots. All the while we were proud witnesses to her cuteness and effort. My friend turned to me and rhetorically asked; when do we start getting the message that trying and falling is something to be ashamed of?

On Sukkot we sit in the Sukkah and are covered by hovering schach. It’s not on us but over us. It is sometimes referred to as makifim, surrounded by, embracing by. We are told that on Sukkot we have the opportunity to draw down levels of consciousness that are up until now only makifim, up until now temporary states that we have not fully integrated.

If our relationship to the natural process of growth, of getting up and falling down, is one of embarrassment, hopelessness and impatience, then we live our lives in small, enclosed, secure boxes.

If however we can pass through the natural frequency of falling down and getting up while in states on our way to stages, then our lives are open like the roof of a Sukkah, to an endless sky of possibilities.

Sukkot are days of joy, of resonating to our innate wellbeing. From the place of joy and wellbeing, falling down and getting up are as natural as a child learning to walk. Sukkot is the time of having the faith that the processes we go through within the Sukkah, are ultimately within an even greater surrounding Presence who is proudly waiting for us to get up and give it another shot.

That would be the essence of my father whose Yartzeit was the second night of Sukkot.

Have great Shabbos and a most joyous Chag,

Simcha