Seeing Stars

Rabbi Heshy Roth

Written by a friend

I enjoyed yet another Shabbos evening at my dear friend Rabbi Roth. The Shabbos table is always filled with Torah discussions where he and his sons battle for Torah clarity. 

This Shabbos, he asked a very basic, yet perplexing question: "We learn that the Schach (the roof of the Succah) must allow gaps so we might view the stars through it's covering. This is to assist us in witnessing God's stellar creations suspended in the heavens, and recall His majesty. We are to realize that God is essential to our shelter. Why then must a Succah's covering exist at all? Would we not see the stars all that much clearer, had no roof existed? What is the philosophy behind the Succah's partial covering, if in fact, any covering obscures what we might envision?"

Rabbi Roth went on to elaborate on the purpose of Succah: we are to leave our permanent homes, and dwell in the Succah – a minimal dwelling – so as to demonstrate our true dependency is on God, and not the physical protection provided by a sturdy roof. Doing so: gazing through the sparse Schach, helps us achieve this objective. 

Why then have Schach at all?!

Rabbi Roth explained: God does not want man to live where he rejects God's natural world and its laws, and simply sits back waiting for miracles; that God should do everything for him. No. God designed the natural world for a reason: that man use his mind and harness it, as God says in Genesis 1:28, "...fill the Earth and subdue it". Man must act in accordance with its reality. Reality teaches us that we do need shelter, and that there are methods by which to procure that, and all our needs. We are to engage in these methods, be it natural science, engineering, math, etc. But we cannot depend on physical shelter alone, without God. Schach is a fundamental lesson: it combines man's attempt at sheltering himself with the realization that man's efforts always require God assistance. Schach – a structure which man creates but allows gaps to see God's stars – demonstrates the combination of man's obligatory attempts of physical shelter, with God's providence (the gaps). Thereby, man reflects on God's heavenly bodies, and reminds himself that just as his brick home is equally dependent on God, so too, all else is not exclusively in our hands. 

The true lesson of Succos is that man abandons the fallacy that he can address all his needs without God.