The essence of the mitzvah of “dwelling in the Sukkah” is just that – to dwell, to reside in the Sukkah just as one lives in more permanent structures the rest of the year. Not only eating, but sleeping, studying, even talking with friends, should all (ideally) happen in the Sukkah.

As described in the Mishnah (the first body of recorded notes from the Oral Law, expounded upon in the Talmud) in Tractate Sukkos, one must have a full meal in the Sukkah on the first night — as always, a “full meal” is defined by consumption of bread. The Talmud explains that the Torah uses the same expression, “the fifteenth of the month,” with regards to Passover (in Nissan) and Sukkos (in the current month of Tishrei). An established tradition dating back to our ultimate teacher, Moshe Rabbeinu, tells us that the identical phrase is intended to teach us that just as there is a special mitzvah to eat Matzah on the first night of Passover, the fifteenth of Nissan, so must one eat bread on the first night of Sukkos.

There is an interesting dispute among early authorities concerning this mitzvah. According to one opinion, on must eat meals with bread on every holiday. If so, what is the “special mitzvah” to eat a meal? According to this opinion, the Mishnah is speaking about a case when it is raining on the night of the fifteenth. Even though one is ordinarily exempt from the Mitzvah of dwelling in the Sukkah when it is raining, one must eat at least a small amount (a ‘kezayis’, the size of an olive) of bread in the Sukkah on that night. [Wear a raincoat!] According to the second opinion, however, one does not need to eat bread on every holiday — so the Mishnah is speaking about a special obligation to have a meal when it is not raining. If it is raining, then one is exempt as always.

According to this latter opinion, one could have no more than one or two meals in the Sukkah during the entire holiday. One wouldn’t even need to have a Sukkah for the entire seven days, if one were not encouraged to live there. [N.B. A person who is cold or afraid of thieves is exempt, so many, especially in northern and urban areas, do not sleep in a Sukkah.]

We are commanded to live in a Sukkah “because I placed the Children of Israel in Sukkos when I took them out of Egypt…” [Lev. 23:43] What is the Torah trying to teach us? With relatively few exceptions, we accomplish mitzvos within short periods of time. Why must we return to the Sukkah again and again, living in it for a full week? What do we accomplish, asleep?

According to the commonly accepted understanding of the verse above (it is another Talmudic dispute, but see the commentaries of Onkelos and Rashi), the “Sukkos” with which G-d protected our people were His Clouds of Glory. For forty years, our forefathers went through the desert with constant evidence of HaShem’s guidance and protection all around them.

The Sukkos which we build share in a spark of that same holiness. The Zohar says, “When a person dwells in the Sukkah, the Divine Presence spreads Her wings over him from above…” [Section 3, 103b] We, quite simply, spend a week living with the Divine Presence all around us.

On Yom Kippur, like the angels, we say aloud the second verse of Kriyas Shema, the Reading of the Shema, which we ordinarily whisper: “Blessed be the Name of the Honor of His Kingdom forever.” We deny ourselves food and drink. Instead, we devote ourselves to prayer and to G-d. We, on Yom Kippur, spend a day trying to live as angels.

What, then, is the lesson of Sukkos? I think one answer is, to spend a week trying to live as human beings. Every day, we go into the Sukkah and experience the Divine Presence just by sitting there. How can we not be affected? Day in, day out, we go out of our normal houses and thus have the Divine Presence as “part of the family.” We think differently. We speak differently — Rav Moshe Cordovero and other Torah leaders were careful to only speak about Torah in the Sukkah.

We emerge realizing how we can live the rest of the year. We should realize that we encounter the Divine Presence more often than we know. G-d is always with us, and G-d gave us a picture of how a human being should live. May a week of special practice and reinforcement drive us forward into a full year of life on a higher plane, filled with Torah, Mitzvos, and continued learning and growth.