Are You Living in the “Right” or “Wrong” Sukkah?

A “sukkah” is a temporary hut or booth.  It is normally associated with the Feast of Tabernacles, though the word does appear elsewhere in Scripture to refer to actual booths (e.g. Jonah 4:5) and the House (dynasty) of David (Amos 9:11).  Our bodies and our life in Yeshua (Jesus) can also be likened to a sukkah because Earth is only our temporary dwelling place.

Jonah’s sukkah in Jonah 4:5 can be likened to a place of escape while he waited to see what God was going to do with the Ninevites.  He was “getting away from it all.”  Do you consider your Sukkah (your life in Yeshua) to be like Jonah’s sukkah, an “escape hatch” from a lost world that is simply awaiting judgment– a “Sukkah of Doom”, or is it a “Sukkah of Hope”?

Have you given up on the US political system or the US and/or world in general?  Do you consider your life in Yeshua to be simply an escape hatch for when Father God calls you Home?  Are you focused on your walk with Yeshua only as it benefits you (Sukkah of Doom)?

Or are you influencing your family, friends, and neighbors with a message of hope by your lifestyle and even direct witnessing to what He has done for you and can do for them (Sukkah of Hope)?  (I readily admit that I often do not.)

Yeshua teaches us that our salvation isn’t only about escaping the judgment that is hanging over this world–a gate-pass into Heaven, so to speak.  We must remember that God values people and counts each one as precious, even those who think He doesn’t exist, or those who think that He exists but live as if they wish He didn’t.  Jesus instructs us to share not only God’s compassion for such folks but also His desire to gather them in as something precious, to harvest the bounty that belongs to Him.

Which sukkah do you live in?

The above post is adapted from an article by Rabbi Russ Resnik, entitled “Jonah and the Wrong Sukkah.”  I recommend that you read the entire article, which is found at Jonah and the Wrong Sukkah

Why all this talk about sukkahs?  Because we are at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles on the traditional Jewish calendar.  Sukkot started at sundown Sunday, Oct. 16 and runs through sundown Oct 23.  Sukkot is one of God’s appointed feasts or times (notice that I said “God’s,” not “Jewish”).  It is a joyous 8-day festival commemorating the forty-year period during which the children of Israel wondered in the desert, living in temporary shelters.  It is also a harvest festival.

Our Savior celebrated all the feasts.  We read about one such time in John 7 and 8 when He applied some of the traditional elements of the celebration to His own life.  I chanced upon a good article about this event that also describes some of the celebration during Yeshua’s time and how Yeshua applied it to Himself.  You can read it at  Finding Jesus in the Feast of Tabernacles.

You can also read more about Sukkot and the booths at Judaism 101.

Until the next time…

“May the LORD bless you and protect you;

May the LORD make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

May the LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”

(Numbers 6:24-26 net)