The story goes that there was a king, and he had a daughter. Every mashal (parable) has a king, and she always has a daughter. The king’s daughter needed to get married. Everyone who came along and whom the king tried to marry off to his daughter was not good enough for her. No one was good enough for the daughter. He was too tall, he was too short, he wasn’t educated enough, he wasn’t smart enough, he wasn’t sophisticated enough, he wasn’t cultured enough, he wasn’t good-looking enough, he wasn’t talented enough, he wasn’t skilled enough, he wasn’t enough of a warrior—just no one was good enough.
So finally the king said, “You know what? The next guy who comes along, the next boy who comes along, I’m just marrying her.” Sometimes parents feel that way: “Just whoever the guy is, if he has two legs, leave.” So anyhow, a commoner, a simple village boy, walks in. The king says, “I said, the next one.” He tells his daughter, “You’re marrying the boy.” Very nice. They have a beautiful wedding. Now the girl moves to the boy’s town. Now they’re villagers, simple people. She lives near the boy’s mother, who is a very regular village woman. She starts working her daughter-in-law: “We clean the floors here. We clean the restrooms here. Clean the sinks. You work, plow the field, milk the cow, take care of the eggs and the chicken.” She’s a princess. She doesn’t know what to do with herself. “How do I work the field and plow and clean the floor and scrub the floor?” She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s a princess. It just keeps getting worse and worse every day, every week, every month.
She finally hears the word go out that the king is coming to visit his daughter. Wow. The signs go up. Already, the town, the village starts to transform. “The king is coming to our little village.” So they start cleaning up the floors, transforming the village, and making changes. The king starts sending his messengers and some soldiers to set up, pave the way, and make sure everything is set up. The soldiers come, and finally the king himself arrives. He comes into the house. They treat the king like royalty. Everyone around the king is like royalty. It’s a beautiful interaction. He sees his daughter. Everything is wonderful. And now the king says, “Okay, I’m leaving.” He goes to his horse and his chariot, and his daughter comes over. “Father, don’t leave.” He says, “Why not?” “Don’t leave. You understand? They work me. You leave tomorrow, and I’m going to be back cleaning bathrooms. I’m going to be milking cows in the mud. Please don’t leave.” He says, “What do you mean, ‘Don’t leave’? I just came for a visit.” “Please don’t leave.”
The king then turns to his son-in-law and says, “What are you doing, daughter?” The son-in-law says, “Oh, your highness, you married her off to me. You married her off to a villager. You didn’t give me anything. You didn’t give me any plan. You didn’t give me a palace. You didn’t give me a place to be. You didn’t give me any part of royalty. So I’m treating her the way I’m trained to treat her, the way other people in my village treat their wives. No difference.” This is where the Maggid of Dubno ends his mashal. What’s the mashal? The mashal is: we will have a soul. And Hashem took this soul. He took not just the soul—the soul of the Jewish people—and He put us into human bodies, which are basically made for villagers. You see what human bodies are? They paint themselves with human bodies. They make for simple people.
Then we go through a year, and we’re doing what humans do: all the mundane, simple things—running, doing, driving, buying, choosing carpets, things that are just not relevant. We’re doing this all year, and then all of a sudden we hear that the king is coming. Hashem is coming. It’s Elul. Signs are going up. Hashem is coming. We start saying, we start sounding the shofar (ram’s horn) and different tefillot (prayers). We start making changes because the king is coming. Now He sends His top messengers on Rosh Hashanah, and He comes from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the King Himself. And our soul is elevated. Then Hashem says on Yom Kippur, “I’m leaving now. The last time we’re going to say the word...” And also now, the neshama (soul) by Ne'ilah is screaming, “Hashem, where are you going? Like, I’m going to go back to a villager. I’m going to go back to living with, like, a commoner.” And Hashem says, “Yeah, I just came for a visit.”
Then Hashem turns to our body and says, “You’re really going to treat the soul? Like, your Jewish body, you’re going to treat the soul?” He says, “What am I supposed to do? You gave me a human body that has human needs, that needs to eat, that is tempted, that has desires, that has distractions. That’s what you made me.” Hashem says, “You know what? I’m going to give you a palace. I’m going to give you a place. I’m going to give your body a place where it will know how to treat the soul. That place is the sukkah (temporary booth). I’m going to put you in my palace in the sukkah. And you’re going to now be a different person. You’re going to live like a different person. Your body is going to be in sync with your neshama. The princess and the prince will be of like mind.”