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The Gemara in Masechet Ta’anit (25a) tells the story of Rabbi Hanina Ben Dosa, an exceptionally pious Sadik who lived in destitution. His wife once complained about the scarcity that they endured, and so he prayed for a miracle. In response to his prayers, the image of a hand extended from the heavens and gave him a golden leg of a table, instantly making them wealthy.
That night, Rabbi Hanina’s wife beheld in a dream an image of the next world, where she and her husband sat at a three-legged table, while everybody else sat at tables with four legs. Upon awakening, she immediately understood that the gift she received had been taken out of their “account” in the next world. She had Rabbi Hanina pray that the leg be taken back. Sure enough, a hand descended and took the table back into the heavens.
The Gemara concludes this story with a mysterious statement: “The later miracle was greater than the first.” Meaning, the hand that brought back the table was more miraculous than the hand bringing down the table in the first place.
We must wonder, why does this matter? What difference does it make which miracle was greater? And why, in fact, was the second miracle greater than the first?
The answer given is that normally, anything from the upper world brought into our physical world is, almost by definition, tainted, and thus unworthy of being returned to the heavens. We might draw an analogy to the sterile environment in an operating room. If a medical instrument was brought outside, exposed, it would never be brought back into the operating room, because it is no longer sterile. Similarly, the leg of a table – or anything – that was brought outside the pure, pristine environment of the heavens, into our physical world, is unfit for that environment thereafter. But this case was an exception – because Rabbi Hanina Ben Dosa’s home was pure and pristine just like the heavens. His level of piety and sanctity was such that the leg was not tainted to even the slightest extent. This is the great miracle of the leg’s return to the heavens – that it was still worthy of being returned, even after coming into our world, because it had come into a part of our world that was heavenlike.
Parashat Bereshit tells the story of Adam and Havah’s banishment from Gan Eden after the sin of eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. Ever since their expulsion, mankind has been charged with the responsibility to strive to return to Gan Eden. Through our Torah learning and observance of Misvot, we bring into our world the purity of Gan Eden, and thus, in some sense, we return to the garden.
This process reaches its apex after the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays). Having confessed, repented and prayed, focusing on improving ourselves, we have reached, to one extent or another, greater heights of sanctity, thus turning our world into “Gan Eden.”
This explains the tradition of the “Ushpizin,” the notion that during the holiday of Sukkot, we are visited in the Sukka by the great Sadikim – Abraham, Yishak, Yaakob, Yosef, Moshe, Aharon and David. The Sukka represents our return to Gan Eden after the cleansing process we have undergone over the course of the Yamim Noraim. Now that we’ve succeeded in creating a Gan Eden here in our world, resembling, if only somewhat, the home of Rabbi Hanina Ben Dosa, our righteous ancestors are able to come from the heavens and join us, because our Sukka is actually an extension of the heavens.
Our challenge, and our responsibility, during this time of year is to try to maintain the “Gan Eden” that we’ve created. We must ensure that the growth we experienced during the holiday season continues with us throughout the coming months. Let us try to bring Gan Eden into our world by making our lives purer, holier and nobler, through our fervent commitment to Torah learning and performing Misvot.