|
God's Sukkah is Safe
By Allen S. Maller
Debbie and Danny were very unhappy.
When they tried to fast all day on Yom Kippur but they hadn't been able to go without food past 2 o'clock. Even though their parents had told them that when they were older they would have the self-discipline to be able to fast all day on Yom Kippur, they wanted to do it now.
And when they had tried to blow the Shofar after Rosh Hashanah family services they hadn't been able to make a real sound; just a little squeak. Now their parents were telling them they were to young to sleep overnight in the Sukkah. It wasn't fair.
Debbie and Danny had helped their parents build the Sukkah. In fact, the reason their family had a Sukkah of their own this year was because of Debbie and Danny. Their father had said he didn't have the time to build a Sukkah this year, but the kids had offered to help with everything. When the Sukkah was finished their father was proud of how much they had helped. They carried a table and chairs into the Sukkah and prepared to eat their meals in the Sukkah. But when the kids said they wanted to bring their sleeping bags into the Sukkah and sleep overnight their parents said, "NO".
First their parents said it was to cold to sleep in the Sukkah. Then they said the kids were too young. Finally they said that it wasn't safe.
Debbie and Danny said a Sukkah was as safe as a house. A Sukkah was God's shelter for the Jewish people for all the years when the Jews lived in the desert after they left Egypt. And a Sukkah was the shelter Jewish people used in the Land of Israel when they were harvesting their crops and thanking God for the harvest. They reminded their parents that:
'It is a Mitsvah to build a Sukkah.'
'It is a Mitsvah to eat meals in a Sukkah.'
'And it is a Mitsvah to sleep in a Sukkah.'
Their parents were impressed that Debbie and Danny had such a great desire to do Mitsvot so they agreed that the kids could sleep overnight in the Sukkah on Saturday night.
When Saturday night came Debbie and Danny were eager to sleep in the Sukkah. They had decorated the Sukkah with drawings and old Shanah Tovah cards. They had hung different kinds of fruit and vegetables on the Sukkah. Now they got in their sleeping bags, ate a night-time snack from the fruit hanging on the Sukkah, and went to sleep.
In the middle of the night they were suddenly awakened. The Sukkah was shaking, but it wasn't from the wind. The ground itself was shaking. It was an earthquake. They heard a loud crash. A tree had fallen on their house. They were scared. Then they remembered that they were in God's Sukkah. They didn't feel so frightened. They said the Sh'ma a few times and they felt even better. The earthquake stopped.
Their parents came out and they seemed to be more upset than the kids. The tree that had fallen had landed on the roof above the bedroom where the children slept. They might have been hurt if they had been sleeping in the house.
Thank God the kids had been sleeping in the Sukkah.
~~~~~~~
from the October 2008 Edition of the Jewish Magazine
|
