Rabbi Efrayim Shapiro shlita shared a beautiful insight from his father. A few decades ago, there was a department store named Tiffany’s that was broken into one day. You can only wonder, what did they take? After all, it was a department store that took up a whole city block, and they had items in the store worth thousands of dollars. Well, the truth is, they took absolutely nothing! All they did was switch price tags! Something that had a price tag for $15,000, they switched with a price tag that was $200, and something else that was worth a few hundred dollars, they switched with the one that was $25,000. Presumably they planned on coming the next day with the intent to buy the expensive items for the cheaper price. Unfortunately for them, the store employees picked up on their scheme. Obviously, they were unable to open up the store with all the price tags switched, so they had to close the store for an entire day, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, to ensure that all the price tags were switched back!
Rabbi Shapiro’s father asked, do we sometimes suffer from the “Tiffany Syndrome?” Do we sometimes switch our price tags and take what is really important – the “ikar,” and make it secondary, the “toful?” And do we sometimes take the “toful” and get totally consumed by it and make it into an “ikar?”
This, says Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l (Kol Ram, Succos), is the lesson of the succah, like the Gemara says (Succah 2a), “All seven days [of Succos] you should leave your permanent dwelling and reside in a temporary dwelling.” The point of the mitzvah of succah is to ingrain in ourselves that our “ikar,” our main purpose in life, is only the time that we spend toiling in Torah and doing mitzvos. Like the Mishnah says in Pirkei Avos: עשה תורתך קבע – that the Torah should be the main focal point of our lives; everything else in this world should only be used as resources to be able to learn Torah and do the mitzvos. If someone were to switch the “price tags,” and make his material needs the main purpose of his life, then he is missing the purpose he was created for. However, one who has his priorities straight will receive reward even for the material things he does since they are being utilized towards the service of Hashem.
Rav Moshe adds, that even if we sit idle, and for whatever reason are not able to perform mitzvos at any given time, if our main desire is only to learn and do mitzvos, it will be considered as if we are actually learning and doing mitzvos during that time. This is why Klal Yisroel were compared to malochim after they said נעשה ונשמע (see Shabbos 88a). Malochim are sent on a mission once in many years and it is considered as if they are constantly serving Hashem because the maloch is always waiting to be the messenger of Hashem. So too, Klal Yisroel, when they said נעשה ונשמע, they were proclaiming that we will always be ready and on the lookout to serve Hashem. May we all internalize the message of the succah and make sure we have our “price tags” on the right things throughout our lives, and then it will be considered as if we are constantly serving Hashem!
