A Sukkot Lesson on Schach and Being Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

For a Jew, it's the most wonderful time of the year. Jews have four holidays crammed into a single month. We are currently in the middle of Sukkot (סכות). Also known as "the Festival of Tabernacles," Sukkot acts as a harvest festival. A major component of Sukkot is building a temporary dwelling called a sukkah (סוכה). As I looked up through the roof of the sukkah this year, I started to focus on the roof covering of the sukkah, referred to as schach (סכך). 

I started to think of some of the technicalities about what makes for valid schach under Jewish law. Two important details have to do with what the schach is made of (Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 134:3). It has to grow from the earth (גדולו מן הארץ) and it has do no longer be attached to the earth (תלוש). On the one hand, it is material made of this earth, implying there was nurturing and growth that was involved in the creation of the schach. At the same time, it is no longer attached to the earth. It has been uprooted from the conditions that once allowed for it to grow. 

Another important detail is that there has to be enough schach to provide more shade than sun (Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 134:5). What is interesting is that we are not completely covered under a sukkah. We need enough openings to have the sunlight come through the roof and enough where we can see the stars. Yes, we are supposed to receive some coverage, but we still leave enough openings to be exposed to nature, to the elements. 

You would think that these would only be details that a carpenter or architect would give particular meaning. I would normally find a fixation with such details as material type of the schach to be reflective of the obsession in the Orthodox world over legal minutiae that seemingly have no bearing on a spiritual experience. And this year, I was able to find spiritual meaning in them. 

I have been reading the book How to Be Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable by Ben Aldridge. Aldridge talks about his journey, which includes the exploration of Stoicism, Buddhism, and cognitive-based therapy. By discussing these approaches, Aldridge describes how he came to terms with his fears and anxieties by leaning into them. As the title suggests, he developed the mental resistance to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. 

I think the schach has a similar lesson to teach, especially if the sukkah is meant to act a metaphor for joyful living. We grow up only to have life thrust less-than-ideal situations upon us. We are uprooted from the things that make us feel comfortable: that is an inevitability in life that I discussed this past Tisha B'Av. I think this feeling has been quite notable during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, so many people went to work and went about their day-to-day in an automatic fashion, thinking that nothing could shake their sense of stability or security. And then we got hit with the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu, the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and social unrest in the United States that has not been since the late 1960s. The uprootedness, the disorientation, things not going as we expect: this is all a part of life experience. 

If the amount of schach teaches us anything, it is that we are not meant to be sheltered from the elements. We are meant to accept the elements as part of the process. As a dear friend of mine brought up, the sunlight comes in through the cracks. Even as we protect ourselves from the elements, we have to remind ourselves vis-à-vis gratitude that there is good in our lives. 

What about when the elements get to be too much? I wrote a piece two years ago about the exemption of sitting in the sukkah when weather conditions are uncomfortable and what we could learn about adapting to bad situations. It seems contradictory that I would now write that we need to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. But if we sift through some of the details, it really is not contradictory. 

One of the interesting points about the exemption is that it is based on a subjective definition of discomfort. If we learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, it would not bother us as much. It means we would have a higher resilience to deal with cold weather or rain if it comes on Sukkot. 

It is also worth noting that the sukkah pushes us in multiple ways. The temporary nature of the sukkah reminds us that our lives are also temporary. We have to find joy even while knowing that we will all die one day. Many have argued over the centuries that money buys happiness. Although it might seem intuitive for that to be the case, we are meant to find spiritual joy in material simplicity. We also have to find comfort and joy in nature when we could readily enjoy the comforts of modern-day life. The fact that Sukkot does not commemorate a specific event implies that we have to push ourselves to find meaning to a situation when one is not immediately apparent.

Yes, there will be certain scenarios in which we cannot avoid going indoors for Sukkot, such as when a hurricane, whether literal or metaphorical, abruptly comes in our lives. We cannot weather everything. We are human and thus limited by our imperfections. However, if we could learn to weather a slightly colder wind or a temporary storm, it gives us more opportunities to experience a mitzvah, to experience something we otherwise would not have. If you can enjoy eating in a sukkah, saying brachot (blessings), and singing zemirot (holiday songs) regardless of what life, G-d, or Mother Nature throw at you, I would argue that is equanimity. Stoic philosopher Epictetus once said that it is not so much the external events that cause distress, but how we respond to them. If we learn to better respond to the external events, we would have fewer scenarios in which we would feel the need to go inside during Sukkot. Life is not about the comfort zone. It is about moving beyond it to grow, much like Abraham did when he left his hometown at the age of 75. Interestingly enough, the Torah does not mention anything in Abraham's life prior to him pushing himself outside of his comfort zone. To quote American author Neale Donald Walsch, "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone."

What I leave you with are some questions to think about: What makes us uncomfortable? How does the discomfort impede us in life? How do we learn how to build our resilience? How do we learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable so we experience life more fully instead of missing out on the vast number of opportunities that life has to offer? 

מועדים לשמחה!