Thursday, September 23, 2010

Define "Dwell"

The holiday of Sukkot has a whole list of rules for us to follow, how to fulfill the mitzvah of "dwelling" in the Sukkah.

Here's one such list of rules to help us define this concept...
To paraphrase:
Eat in the sukkah.
Sleep in the sukkah, unless it's raining.
If the sukkah causes distress (too windy or cold), you're exempt.
If it rains, you're exempt.
If you're sick, you're exempt.
(We're very practical people.)

The blessing for sitting in the sukkah is:

Blessed are You, our God, Ruler of the world, 
who has made us holy with commandments 
and commanded us to dwell in the sukkah.

I think playing your Nintendo DS counts as "dwelling."

Don't you?

2 comments:

Batya said...

The "shin-bet" root means so many things, like sit, return, settle. Maybe the key is to properly define "succah."

Minnesota Mamaleh said...

well of course it does, silly! duh! i can't even express how much i love this! so i'll just stop now. :)