A new era in the history of mankind opened this week with the launch of the Russian satellite. Most interesting was the reaction of the majority of us to this new development – aside from American chagrin and Russian jubilation concerning the “race” aspect. It was a reaction of fear – even terror. Our defenses all over the world are exposed; we are at the mercy of an uncanny instrument peering down at us maliciously from the heavens. The very fact that it is so high gives not the expected feeling of power that we can make a moon, but rather of our insignificance on earth. In a word, the earth satellite this week has startlingly enhanced man’s natural feeling of insecurity.

And is particularly this kind reaction which Sukkos should inspire in us according Rabbi Akiva. Controversy R. Akiva and R. Eleizer: Suukos Mamash or Ananei Ha’kavod. R. Akiva - actual Sukkos, Mi’diras Neva le'diras aray, feeling of transience, temporariness, impermanence. Sukkah is desert hut of rootless wanderer. Sukkah today inspires in man feeling his essential bedouinism - no permanent dwelling, no security. ALL THE WORLD'S A SUKKAH - No roof over head - just exposed! Just the feeling the sattelite gives us - Tzillsah Merubah me'chamassah - more dark than light in life... Sukkah and Sputnick both - tell us we cannot really rely on conventional props in life — wealth, homes, health, family, friends — all Aray - impermanent. Sukkah is an annual reminder of fact that there is no real security in life, even roof over heads at mercy wind & rain, word "security" just figment imagination.

1. Yet we know that this not end of matter. Sattelite may enhance sense insecurity but that must not inevitably drive us full despair? Sukkah is Diras Aray, and Tzillsah Merubah - but isn't it also - despite all this - Zman Simchaseinu. Here is where R. Eliezer comes with second side coin, as follow-up to R. Akiva: yes, Sukkos makes us painfully aware underlying insecurity our world but still is Zman Simchasseinu - because Ananai hakavod! We may feel insecure our little world, and no rely on material props - but Man covered cloud glory, has G-d above Who watches over him - thus true that no security in Mamash, in Things, in material world - but complete security in G-d if live life of Kavod. Sukkah tells man - Mamash, material sources security, are all hollow - Aray, Tzillsah Merubah... but thru Sechach can see Heaven - and Heaven can see you - Sukkah teaches you that ultimate reliance on G-d, not home or walls etc. There is no greater cause for Man's happiness than for him to know that despite fact All World’s A Sukkah, that can't rely on Mamash, that life insecure, still - priority, upon which he can rely - his Emunah.
2. In essence, then, the message of Sukkos is to proceed from Akiva's thesis to that of R. Eliezer, to experience first the Sukkah Mamash, then the Ananei Ha'kavod, to be disillusioned first with the false security of Mamash, of the material world, with the impermanence and unreliability of life as we sit down in the wanderer's hut - and then to arrive at the encouraging idea that man is still blessed with Kavod, with inherent dignity granted to him by G-d, that he can always rely upon his Maker and find security in Him.
3. This is probably the real reason for the Ushpizzin - each of the nights of Sukkos we invite another of the seven spiritual guests: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David. We appeal to Jewish history for proof of spiritual adventure from disillusionment in Mamash and hope in Kavod, from the material Sukkah and what it symbolizes to the spiritual world of man and what it symbolizes. Abraham lived a secure life - until G-d told him Lech-lecha - leave your material security of home and land and take to the wanderer’s staff and living in a Sukkah... Only through Sukkah Mamash did Abraham arrive at his great moments of an intimate relationship with G-d - after Zakein Ba Ba'yamim... so with Isaac who is secure in his home, but faces the insecurity of the Akeidah - and survives. And the Kavod that follows - this is so too of Jacob’s life, Joseph who begins in the secure knowledge that he is his father's favorite, then is sold into slavery and the insecurity of being brought to Egypt. Moses is brought from his flocks - as are David and Aaron - to head a people in a process of change, through all sorts of precarious conditions where they cannot rely on well-known props, only on G-d Himself. This, then, is the history of the education of the Jew: from security to awareness of insecurity, from insecurity to the greater security of faith in G-d.
4. Sukkah teaches us that we can do without (if need be) most of our material conveniences during rest of year. Salesgirl: “See anything you like?” Tall, lanky Texan in Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas: “Never saw so much stuff I could do without!” Sukkah teaches us that we can do without. Second - that we are not really so dependent after all - introduces us to Ananei Hakavod - spiritual protection even with flimsy roof of Sukkah's Sechach.
5. So the sattelite, for all its speed and frightful power, can bring us a beneficial achievement for man. It tells us unmistakably that we are not really secure - and that's a healthy realization.
6. No matter how fast artificial moons travel, they can never overtake Ananei Ha’kavod, clouds of glory not restricted to atmosphere of earth, clouds which envelope all cosmos and all its galaxies, no matter how far they reach. Our G-d is a great G-d - one Who created the Heavens and all its hosts - His abode is not on earth, and He is not restricted to it. If Man has showed great creative genius in this great breakthrough to outer space, it is only because G-d endowed him with a brain sufficient to do what he did.

What this holiday of Sukkos tells us more than at any other time in all the past is: now that you have penetrated to interplanetary space, don’t stop - try for Heaven itself, for a spiritual rather than spatial triumph. And for those to whom this scientific achievement spells fear and induces the disillusionment with Sukkos Mamash, our Torah says: when scanning the skies for the Sattelite, look beyond it to the protective Ananei Hakavod, the clouds from which descend the glory of G-d to endow man with some of that same glory - for Kavod ve'hadar te’atreihu, Thou hast crowned man with Thy glory and Thy majesty.