T266 PNC - Premature Animal Death Comes From Lack of Care in the Mitzvah of Sukkah

Animals dying before their time comes from a person not being careful with the mitzvah of sukkah as he should be. Why? The sukkah is the aspect of "mother that covers the children" (Tikkunim 3) — the aspect of "if you call to understanding" (Proverbs 2:3). This is the very thing that distinguishes "man" from "animal": the Talmud (Berachot 10) on "Bless Hashem, my soul, and forget not all His benefits" — Hashem made breasts for women in the place of understanding (the chest), while animals nurse from breasts below. "Man" nurses from breasts in the place of understanding — that is sukkah. "Animal" nurses from breasts that are below.

When a person damages the mitzvah of sukkah, he falls from the aspect of "breasts of man" (which are in the place of understanding, the aspect of sukkah) and tumbles to the aspect of "breasts of animal," sucking from there. He is now drawing his sustenance from the abundance allotted to animals. He sucks their life away — and through this they die, because their hashpa'ah has been redirected into him. The degree of damage to sukkah determines the degree of his fall and the amount of animal-abundance he siphons; correspondingly, the deaths of animals and beasts. This is hinted in "and for his cattle he made sukkot" (Genesis 33:17) — sukkah is for the cattle.

And similarly, those occupied in building harm themselves — as the Talmud says (Sotah 11): anyone who occupies himself with building becomes poor. Why? Because a house must be built with chochmah and sechel; only then will the building not harm the builder. As Proverbs 24:3-4 puts it: "With wisdom a house is built, with understanding it is established, and with knowledge the chambers are filled" (see Sanhedrin 92a — once the house is built with chochmah, there is a place for shefa to enter). When you build without sechel, the building harms you, and the punishment is poverty — poverty is itself the aspect of damaged chochmah, "the wisdom of the poor is despised" (Ecclesiastes 9:16).

Therefore, through the sukkah — which is the aspect of binah, "if you call to understanding" — one is empowered to build a house in the aspect of "with chochmah a house is built." This is hinted in "And Yaakov journeyed to Sukkot, and built himself a house" (Genesis 33:17) — sukkah first, then house. And this is the connection between Sukkot and Shavuot — they are essentially one, because the Torah comes out from binah (which is sukkah): "and forsake not the Torah of your mother" (Proverbs 1:8). Therefore Simchat Torah comes immediately after Sukkot — once you have entered the sukkah, you have entered the source-place from which Torah emerges. Then begins the cycle anew at Bereishit ("in the beginning") — "beit reishit," the beit (house) of beginning, the very same Yaakov "sukkotah and built him a house." In the verse "and Yaakov journeyed Sukkotah and built" — the initial letters spell Tziyon twice (with vav-yud counted), hinting at matan Torah, the cycle of Shavuot embedded in the cycle of Sukkot.