From Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot: A Roadmap for Inner Development

If we pause for a moment and look at the path we have traveled from Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot, we discover a roadmap for human development. Everything begins with the desire to change.

On Rosh Hashanah, a person decides: Enough. I no longer want to continue living only for my ego. During the Ten Days of Repentance and on Yom Kippur, he conducts a true self-examination and understands that the ego controls him and that he has no power of his own to change anything. Then he makes a “restriction.” He stops. He ceases to receive solely for himself.

But one cannot remain in restriction and emptiness for long. Immediately after Yom Kippur, we set out to build a new desire, symbolized by the Sukkah. The most important thing in the Sukkah is the Schach. The Schach symbolizes the screen—an anti-egoistic force.

And notice what it is made from: the “waste of the threshing floor and the winepress.” From things our ego disparages—concession, bestowal, and love of others. When we place the Schach above our heads, we are essentially saying: connection and bestowal are more important to me than all the calculations of the ego.

From the moment a person has a screen, he is no longer a victim of his impulses. The screen repels the egoistic urge and enables a person to regulate pleasure: to receive it consciously, with the intention of passing it onward, not for himself.

The process of building the desire, or Kli, continues for seven days through the guests (Ushpizin). When we see all this depth, Sukkot is no longer merely a holiday of eating outdoors. It is an opportunity to build within ourselves an envelope of protection, connection, and inner control.