The Rabbi And The Sukkah

There was a time when a certain poor stranger, a man who was simple of mind and heart, and who had been newly converted in a far distant land to the faith of the Jews, came to live in a small Jewish village. It was near the time of Sukkot and this man set out to build a sukkah. Because branches and boards and other materials were hard to come by in the nearby locale, this simple man journeyed into the distant woods and cut large branches from trees and brought them home on his back. Although the branches were large around, it turned out that they were rather short, not even three feet high. The man had found it very hard to locate these branches and bring them home. To make the branches higher, he decided that he would scoop out a pit in the floor of his sukkah, so that he could sit in it without feeling cramped.

It turned out that the rabbi of the village lived next door to this man. And while the rabbi was friendly to him, the people of the village were not as friendly, as they had no reason to have confidence in his conversion, for they had no contacts in the foreign land where he had come from. He therefore felt afraid of them. Because he was afraid of the people of the village, he was also afraid of their rabbi, although the rabbi had been very warm and open toward him. The simple man was unsure if he was fulfilling the proper requirements for building a sukkah and would have liked to ask the rabbi, but he did not have the courage to approach him.

There was a low fence between the yard of the rabbi and the stranger’s yard and the rabbi watched unobtrusively as the stranger built his sukkah. Knowing the feeling of the people of the village about the stranger and seeing the very unsightly sukkah that he was building, the rabbi determined to build his own sukkah in a very strategic manner.

Immediately the rabbi changed the usual construction of his sukkah, which he was in the middle of building, and built a very tall sukkah. When completed the Rabbi’s sukkah appeared from the outside to be much too tall to be a sukkah at all, but inside it had a platform built upon one wall, which turned the construction into a perfect sukkah.

The rabbi then went and proposed to his neighbor that on alternating days they sit together in one another’s sukkah. The stranger gladly accepted this proposal. On the stranger’s days for sitting in the rabbi’s sukkah there would be important people visiting, and various people from the village. There was almost no mention at all among the village people of the stranger’s odd little sukkah, because so much discussion was taken up with the unusual construction of the rabbi’s sukkah. Indeed, the rabbi’s sukkah had created a great stir and much excitement. On the first day for the rabbi to sit in the stranger’s sukkah, it was only be the rabbi and his neighbor who would sat alone together in the sukkah. Even then, without the rabbi present, many people were next door, taking their turn to sit in the rabbi’s sukkah, to discuss its merits.

When he was in the rabbi's sukkah the stranger’s spirit felt at ease, and was even stirred with what almost seemed like personal memories of Israel dwelling in the wilderness. He even participated in conversations about this with others, especially when the rabbi was involved. When the rabbi and his neighbor sat in his neighbor’s sukkah, however, neither of their spirits felt at home, and neither had any thoughts at all of Israel dwelling with the Shechinah in the wilderness. Nevertheless, there was fellowship between the two of them and they enjoyed one another’s company.

Then, at the end of his next visit with his neighbor in the little pit of his sukkah, the rabbi said, “You have very nice soil here. Could I take some of it home for my garden?” The stranger was happy to be asked, and gladly agreed that the rabbi should take as much as he liked. So then each of the following days of Sukkot the rabbi would visit his neighbor’s sukkah and would scoop away some of the dirt from the side and from the bottom of the pit within his neighbor’s sukkah into his coat and would take it home with him and put it into the garden along the side of his house.

On the final day of the rabbi’s visiting his neighbor in his sukkah, the sukkah no longer seemed small and cramped to the spirit, and, while nothing was said about this, both the rabbi and his friend were caught up with joy in the memories of Israel of all the faithfulness of God to Israel, how He never left them, nor forsook them.

The winter came, and then the spring. Early in the spring, in the place in his garden where the rabbi placed the dirt from his neighbor’s sukkah, one morning the rabbi noticed a shoot of a rose bush coming from the ground. This was not a place where there had ever been roses before, nor had the rabbi planted this plant there. Within a short time a single long stemmed rose had grown from the shoot. Its color was crimson and its face was more beautiful than the sun when it is setting.

The rabbi debated with himself and could not at first make up his mind whether or not to keep the secret of this rose to himself. Soon he found, however, that the fragrance of this rose was so strong that anyone passing by could smell it, and it was such a sweet and wonderful fragrance that everyone who smelled it was drawn to come close to it.

The power of the rose was so great that before long the whole village was gathered at the rabbi’s house to marvel at it. They demanded to know how the rabbi had come to have such a wonderful and perfect rose. For such a rose no one had ever seen or smelled before, even in the garden of kings. The rabbi explained only that he had not planted the rose, and that it had grown out of the dirt from his neighbor’s sukkah.

When the season of Sukkot came again, the rabbi’s neighbor, being a simple man, built his sukkah just as he had the year before, though this time, thanks to the rabbi, the pit was just enough larger that the man felt quite comfortable sitting in the sukkah. This year, no sooner had Sukkot began than all the villagers were visiting the stranger and asking if they might take their turn to sit with him in his sukkah. The great beauty of the scent of crimson rose never faded from their memories. Somehow the stranger’s sukkah had been the source of that rose. Even though this sukkah was very small and unsightly, they could not resist their attraction to it.

Now that so many people were visiting the stranger and his sukkah, even though his sukkah was deeply loved by all, it began to seem appropriate that he should have a larger sukkah. The villagers therefore promised that the next year they would share materials with him and make sure that he had a good sized sukkah, suitable for entertaining guests. Besides, the villagers were now becoming more interested in their new friend than in his sukkah.

However, because that little sukkah was somehow so inspiring to them, and because it had somehow produced that perfect rose in the rabbi’s garden, the villagers asked if they could create a garden around the little sukkah, where it could be left standing permanently, to be maintained as the center piece to the garden, and not to be used. Humbly, the rabbi’s neighbor agreed to this.

Then the villagers came and made the garden around the little sukkah, and planted yellow roses throughout the whole garden, beautifying the whole yard of their new friend. And when the yellow roses were in full bloom one day in the late spring, the rabbi came and stood by himself at the short fence that separated his property from his neighbor’s. The color of the roses was like that of a glorious dawn. The rabbi looked at the little sukkah in their midst and his soul was comforted with a great sigh. He stood there with God, and they wept. After this the roses were even more greatly multiplied.