This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation

by Alan Lew

So now we sit flush with the world, in a “house” that calls attention to the fact that it gives us no shelter.

And it exposes the idea of a house as an illusion. The idea of a house is that it gives us security, shelter, haven from the storm. But no house can really offer us this.

While in their homes the whole year, they are apprehensive. But when Sukkot comes and they leave their homes and come under the shadow of the sukkah, their hearts are full of trust, faith, and joy, for now they are protected, not by the protection of their roofs, but by the shadow of their faith and trust in God.

Joy is a deep release of the soul, and it includes death and pain. Joy is any feeling fully felt, any experience we give our whole being to.

In other words, we cannot bear too much reality.

And there is a joy in this, a joy born of the realization that nothing can protect us.

Every moment of my life, I am utterly powerless and infinitely powerful.

This is the overwhelming, senseless gratitude we feel when we are finally fully awake.