Hallel is a section of prayer recited during the morning service for particular festivals. The word itself means praise, and the service is comprised of six Psalms (113-118). For this week of Chol HaMoed Sukkot, we will look at some of the Hallel Psalms.

Sukkot and Hanukkah are the only multi-day holidays on which Hallel is recited in full throughout the festival days. It is also recited in its entirety on Shavuot and the first two days of Passover; it is not recited at all on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, or Purim. The main difference between the Full and the “Partial” Hallel service is the inclusion—or lack thereof—of verses from Psalm 115 and 116.

Psalm 115, verses 2-3, make the statement:

Why should the nations say, “Say, where is their God?”
But our God is in the heavens, all that God has wanted, God has done.

And Psalm 116, verse 9 says:

I shall walk before Adonai
in the lands of the living.

What is it, we might ask, about these verses that we include them during Sukkot, but not Passover? For an answer, I turn to one of my favorite debates in the Talmud, where Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer disagree on the fundamental nature of sukkot—both the structures themselves and the holiday that bears their name.

Rabbi Akiva says that they are sukkot mamash—real sukkot, just like ones that we build today. They are here and now, in the very world in which we live. Rabbi Eliezer, on the other hand, claims that this verse refers to the ananei hakavod, the clouds of glory with which God led the people; they are metaphorical and not literal.

These verses from the Psalms, to me, echo this tension—or perhaps duality. God’s presence, as felt on Sukkot, is real and ephemeral, here in the land of the living and in the highest heavens. And we dwell in these very real sukkot, these flimsy structures in a flimsy world—knowing that they too are surrounded by Divine presence and, we pray, protection.

—Rabbi Sari Laufer