SUKKOT: On the third day, schach was created!
Had it not been for the seeming ‘failure’ of the earth to comply with Hashem’s words when trees were created, we could not have had schach!
On Shemini Atzeret, אם ירצה ה׳, we will again read Parashat Breishit, commencing with the wondrous relation of the Creation of this world. We will read that on the third day:(1:11-13):’G-d said: Let the earth sprout vegetation: herbage yielding seed fruit trees yielding fruit..And it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation: ..trees yielding fruit..And G-d saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.’
Rashi alerts us to the ‘difference’ between the words of G-d, and the latter part of the passuk: G-d said: ‘fruit trees yielding fruit’; however, as we read, the earth brought forth ‘trees yielding fruit’.
He accordingly comments:’’Fruit trees’: That the taste of the tree should be like the taste of the fruit. The earth however did not do so, but gave forth ‘trees yielding fruit’ but the trees themselves were not fruit. Therefore when man was cursed because of his transgression, the earth too was punished’.
What a wondrous passage! And yet, had it not been for the seeming ‘failure’ of the earth to comply with Hashem’s words, we could not have had schach!
And, to sweeten the conundrum, why then, as we read, did G-d see ‘that it was good’?
To suggest an answer to this, let us first recall the teaching of our Sages:’’Six things were created before the creation of this world..Rabbi Ahva the son of Rabbi Zeira said: Teshuva also.’
The ‘need’ for Teshuva to be created, if we might be permitted to suggest, is found in the words of the wisest man of all, Shlomo Hamelech:(Kohelet 7:20):’For there is no man so wholly righteous on earth that he always does good and never sins.’
Armed with these understandings, let us know attempt to better understand our psukim.
Our Sages have taught us of the great chesed of Teshuva, that one who does teshuvah out of love of Hashem, is singularly rewarded, his very transgressions being deemed as merits. The ‘simple’ basis for this is, that these transgressions were the ‘cause’ for his teshuva, which is so precious in Hashem’s eyes.
Here, you ask: What does this have to do with the creation of schach on the third day of Creation?
Simply stated, had the trees remained as ‘fruit trees bearing fruit’, there would be no schach!
Fruit, as it can ‘receive impurity’: is מקבל טומאה, is invalid as schach- kosher schach, as our Sages teach, must be from פסולת גורן ויקב: the ‘waste of the granary and of the vines- the detached branches of this produce.
Therefore, the trees, by being ‘bearing fruit’- but not fruit themselves - brought into the world, kosher schach!
We can now savor the beautiful insight of Rav Azriel Tauber:’Had Adam Harishon not transgressed, it would have not been possible to perform the Mitzvah of dwelling in the succah, as there would not have been in existence kosher schach! Further, there would also not have been Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as the exalted level of ‘in the place where baa’lei teshuvah stand, the most righteous can ot stand’.
‘Now, as we sit in our succah, we cast our eyes upwards, gazing at our schach, and reflect: this schach is the ‘waste’, the direct product of ALL transgressions, dating back to Adam Harishon; and yet, it, because of the wonderful chesed of teshuvah, merits that we now dwell in the holy succah, in the shade of the Shechina!’.
And this, to my humble mind, is what was ‘good in the eyes of Hashem’, before Whom all is known, and all of whose thoughts, as David Hamelech exalted, are for us, his children.
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