We are almost at the festival of Sukkot. It is one of the most interesting holidays in Judaism, as each of the senses is stimulated by a mitzvah or part of a mitzvah: smell, taste, and touch with the four species of plants (etrog, lulav, hadas, and aravah), hearing with the whisper of the lulav when it is shaken, and sight with the four species and the sukkah. Moreover, the sukkah (a temporary booth) completely envelops the person, being the only mitzvah that involves the entire body at once, since one enters the sukkah completely.
In the Torah, among the verses that define the festival and its laws, there is one with a rather curious syntax: the words that begin and end it are palindromes (at least the translation is; in the Hebrew, only one letter differs). The verse reads (Leviticus 23:42): "For seven days all the people of Israel shall dwell in booths." We know that the Torah is exact and precise, so why does it repeat the same words but in reverse?
Something similar occurs with the words of our sages in the Ethics of Our Fathers, when they say (3:17): "If there is no fear, there is no wisdom; if there is no wisdom, there is no fear." It seems like a paradox, but the simple explanation is that there are two levels of fear: basic and advanced. The basic level of fear leads a person to attain the level of wisdom necessary to reach the second level of fear.
We could say that something similar occurs in the case of the Sukkah. The Sukkah surrounds the person on all sides. This represents that which transcends us and affects our entire being equally. In terms of the qualities of the soul, this would be faith. It is a force that permeates every detail of a person's life and transcends it; that is, it can lead a person to do things that their intellect would dictate against, but faith goes beyond the rational and surpasses it.
However, the verse says, "They will settle at Sukkot." The conceptual idea of settling is to internally incorporate something, so that it "settles" within oneself, becoming a comprehensible and rational part of oneself, like the intellect. Given this, how can one internalize that which is essentially transcendental? How can matters subordinate to the realm of faith be incorporated into the rational world?
This is what the entire festival of Sukkot is about. Through observing the various precepts of the festival and meditating on our vulnerability, the impermanence of our lives, and what we rely on, faith in God is elevated to previously unimaginable levels. That which a person previously relied on faith for becomes a comprehensible and rational part of their existence.
And this same thing makes the palindromic part of the verse also come true: "they will settle in Sukkot," that is, through the joy and dances of Sukkot the person leaves aside the coldness of the rational (or from another angle, the person stops serving God because it makes sense and he understands what he does) and introduces into the world the unconditional surrender to God, rejoicing with the joy of God Himself.
A gut Yom Tov,