Now We’re Actually In the Sukkah!

This Sukkot 5786/2025 we got a nice Sukkot donation from alumnus Matt B. (of “Matt’s Media Messages” fame) along with this caption that really caught our eye (and our hearts). Matt wrote: “Now we’re actually in the Sukkah!”

Matt’s referring to my (Mendel’s) oft-repeated year-round expression: “We’re in the Sukkah!” Now year-round this is a figurative expression, referencing the perspective and mind-set and attitude-changer a Sukkah can be. Obviously, we’re not in the Sukkah in December or at Passover. But mentally, emotionally, we can be in the Sukkah-frame-of-mind all year.

But now that it’s actually Sukkot, Matt’s emphasizing: “Now we’re actually in the Sukkah”. Not only as a mindset or a perspective, but in a very down-to-earth physical sense. As my Zeide Moshe Rubin would say, “in a Sukkah one enters with one’s entire self, even with the mud on one’s boots!” On Sukkos itself, being in a Sukkah is quite literal.

This is a great message about Mitzvot in general. Mitzvot have layers of meaning, there’s often messages we learn from Mitzvot, and one can be in touch with and connect to a spiritual dimension of that mitzvah (say matzah or shofar) even not in the time-frame of that specific mitzvah. All that is wonderful. It is. But no thought or inspiration or heartfelt emotion compares to the actual physical observance of that mitzvah in its proper context. That’s when the mitzvah is the mitzvah!

So yes, we do love Sukkot and its messaging, and we think of the Sukkah and its inspirational thinking all year ’round. (At least we do). But NOW, now that it’s Sukkot, now we actually are observing the mitzvah, now we’re in the Sukkah, as the mitzvah was designed to be. We’re very much in the Sukkah, and now it’s actually!