The Torah has a lot to say about real estate.
One word it uses to describe houses, for example, is achuza, which comes from the same Hebrew word for “to seize” or “to hold,” understanding full well that we hold on to nothing quite as fervently as we do to our homes. Only homeowners were required to travel to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem during the three annual pilgrimages, a sign of a society that valued its real estate, and some spiritual diseases were believed to afflict both people and buildings, as homes were considered just as likely to turn wicked as humans.
With all this reverence for houses, it’s strange, perhaps, that Judaism has a holiday dedicated entirely to leaving your home behind.
Each year in the fall, we celebrate the festival of Sukkot. Its requirements are simple: for seven days, we must eat, sleep and congregate in an outdoor hut, reminding us of the four decades we spent erring in the wilderness. That this festival is celebrated in the fall, when the temperatures drop and rain is likely, only adds to the fact that many Jews find Sukkot a bit baffling. Why, after all, work so hard to build a nice, warm home for ourselves only to be told we have to leave it and brave the elements?
The answer is profound, and it’s instructive to Jews and non-Jews alike: it’s because a festival like Sukkot is needed if we’re ever to learn the true value of our homes.
These days, sadly, when you talk about homes and what they’re worth, the first thing that likely comes to mind are the handful of Zillow searches so many of us keep open somewhere in the back of their browsers, watching eagerly for the price to drop on that split-level outside Denver or that charming little shack not far from the beach on Cape Cod. Real estate, as a recent Saturday Night Live sketch confirms, has replaced pornography as the premiere source Americans turn to when they want to indulge their deepest desires. Forget a dalliance with a sexy stranger; if you want us to feel truly aroused, talk to us about an affordable townhouse in a great school district.
Such fantasies of larger living rooms and finished basements are fine, of course, but they obscure the real meaning of home. I should know: spending several decades as a real estate agent in New York City, I was struck by just how difficult it is for people to describe what they truly want when it comes to their apartments. Without fail, clients will engage me and immediately start talking about price, neighborhoods, square footage, and other perfectly reasonable and totally understandable criteria when choosing a place to live. And then I’d start asking them questions: about their lives, about how they spend their days, about what they truly value in life. And all of a sudden, they would change their tune completely, because they would realize that having an apartment awash in light mattered more to them than another guest bedroom, or that making sure each family member had some privacy trumped a tony address or a building with shiny amenities. All they needed was some prodding, and they started thinking about house-hunting as a spiritual journey to find a home that mirrored their yearnings and their beliefs.
That sacredness is hiding in plain sight in the language of real estate. For instance, modern Hebrew infuses spirituality into something as mundane as your mortgage. Mashkanta not only derives from the Talmud’s aramaic word for pledge, mashkon. It also shares a root with the biblical Tabernacle, the mishkan, the dwelling place of God on Earth. The money you borrow, then, becomes a fulcrum by which you transform a house into that other holy and slightly-less-temporary structure.
Yet it is transformation which is precisely the point of Sukkot, because we have forgotten the power of even the most unassuming abode. Once a year, the festival forces all of us out of our homes and into our huts. Sitting there, under the stars, shivering a bit, we look at the people around us, the people we love, and we realize that what makes our home great isn’t that mud room we adore, or the new sectional sofa we just bought for a small fortune. It’s our family and our friends and the times we spend together. And when the week is over and we go back indoors, the realization, hallelujah, lingers for a good, long while.
So here’s an idea for our real estate-obsessed nation: let’s all celebrate a big American Sukkot together. You don’t have to go the full week, especially if you’re not an observant Jew. Take an evening or two this month, and a handful of people you love, and leave your home for just a touch longer than is comfortable. Go sit on a park bench instead of on the couch. Huddle for warmth, and, as you do, you may realize that you’re feeling more at home than you have for a good, long time.
Scott Harris is a veteran real estate agent in New York City and the founder of boutique agency, Magnetic. He is also the author of “The Pursuit of Home: A Real Estate Guide to Achieving the American Dream” (Matt Holt Books), out this month.
