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In "The Surprise," a traveling friar wonders why a puppeteer is sad after a magnificent performance filled with wit and swashbuckling dramatic touches. The man explains that he is always sad when he sees his creatures perform because they cannot respond to him on their own; they just move when he makes them move. He wants them to live. At the end of Act I, the marionettes stir on their own and rise without their strings. They are alive, and in Act II they begin to change the script of their story. I read the play and began to picture the Succah as the puppet theatre in which the marionettes have come to life. Everything has been scripted for us since Rosh Hashanah. We are careful to follow the letter of the law during the Ten Days of Teshuvah so we can earn atonement on the most scripted day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. It has been an exciting performance, but the Puppeteer is waiting for His marionettes to come to life and change the story, add their own touches to the scenes and dialogue. He is waiting for us to respond to Him on our own, to write our own script of life. Why do we celebrate Succot, the festival that honors the Clouds of Glory that protected the Children of Israel as they traveled through the desert, at this time of year? The Vilna Gaon explains that the people forfeit the Clouds when they sinned with the Golden Calf. Moses came down from Sinai with the Second Luchot on Yom Kippur, and began teaching the laws of the construction of the Tabernacle on the 11th of Tishrei. The actual construction began on the 15th, and the Clouds returned. The Clouds we honor on Succot are the ones that appeared in honor of our work to build a home for the Divine Presence. Succot honors God's response to our efforts in building the Mishkan. We are celebrating our ability to build a world that can serve as a home for the Divine Presence. We are honoring our work, our cutting the strings and writing the script. Succot is our response to those who, on Yom Kippur, felt that God is pulling all the strings of their lives, and placing them in painful situations. We are cutting the strings. We stand on our own. We build our own worlds. I see the all the different Succahs, each decorated with our personal expressions, as our assuming the roles of active players in the story. Life is unscripted, just as a Succah is always an incomplete structure. Our challenge is to come to life and respond to the Puppet Master and tell our own stories. This is our chance to remember that God is searching for our contributions to His creation. We begin within the Succah walls only to take the tale outside into the rest of the year. When we shake the Four Species in all directions, we are projecting our expectations into the year, far outside the walls of the theatre, but it will only work if we realize that the Puppeteer desires that we write our own scripts; He created us to be builders, not marionettes.
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