A Sukkah In The Yard And Also In The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Have I understood your explanation correctly, that in addition to the Sukkah that we build in the yard, it is up to us to build it also within the heart?

Answer: Absolutely. And the main thing is to build a Sukkah in the heart. After all, building a Sukkah in the yard is only a custom.

Building a Sukkah in the heart means organizing the desires, intentions, thoughts, yearnings, concerns, anxieties, gratitude, prayers, and everything that I have inside and separating them from the corporeal, beastly desires, which are the concerns for physical existence.

It is up to me to completely differentiate my physical part from the spiritual part. The physical part is concerned about food, sleep, and reproduction, and all of the ordinary human concerns. Whereas, the spiritual part is my reason for living, the goal of my existence, and the meaning of life. To attain the meaning of life, I must examine what desires within me are relevant to this goal.

The part of the desires that are dedicated to attaining the goal of life are called the soul. An entire person is desires. There are physical, corporeal desires that are relevant to this world, as they are with any animal; and there are desires that are beyond physical existence: “What is the reason for my life?” “Who is managing me?” “What will happen to me?” “When will this life be over?” “Must I live merely like a beast or is there something beyond this?”

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that a person must rise to another level beyond physical existence. Throughout life, a person must rise to the next level and begin to live on the level of the Creator. The next level is attained, thanks to acquiring the characteristics of bestowal and love, from which it is possible to see a reality that is beyond this world, to see a world of forces, an infinite reality in which there is no time, movement, space, life or death.

We reach an unlimited development that is called the world to come. And all of this happens during our lifetime in this world, here and now. As it is written: “You will see your world during your life.” We live in a period in which every person can attain it, to the degree that he desires it.

Developing within me characteristics of bestowal and love, meaning developing the soul, is called building a Sukkah within me. For this, it is up to me to scrutinize the desires that exist within me that are linked together and are on different levels of bestowal and reception.

All of these desires are only in regard to a relationship with others and are directed outside of me. No desire is directed towards me. When I compare all of these desires, seeing which of them are closer to charity, which are closer to overcoming, which are more or less limited, I build a kind of envelope around my soul that is like a Sukkah.

Question: Do I examine the entire system of my relationships with other people, and from these relationships build the walls and the thatch for the Sukkah in my heart?

Answer: In a sense this is correct, but it is not that simple. Much time is required to discover my desires and to see what they truly are. After that, when I read books of Kabbalah, I see that I am built precisely according to what is written in them, and so gradually a Sukkah is built in my heart as the outer clothing of this system of relationships.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/2/14

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