Two weeks after Rosh Hashanah, one must build a hut called Sukkah and dwell in it for seven days. The Sukkah should be a temporary dwelling reminding him of the similar arrangements his ancestors had in the desert after going out of Egypt. Some say it reminds him not of the physical dwellings which the Jews used in the desert but rather the Heavenly clouds that surrounded them wherever they went.
According to either reason, Sukkah must be a temporary dwelling, and its height cannot exceed twenty amot (about thirty feet). Why? If he builds the Sukkah that is higher, he must make it much stronger. Thus his Sukkah would be invalid. Some say that in a Sukkah that is high, he simply does not see its roof and forgets that he is in the Sukkah.
When we learned about Shabbat, we had a similar limitation: the height of an eruv bar, reminding people of the Shabbat boundaries where one cannot carry things also had to be less than twenty amot, but there one had to lower it. Why, when talking about Sukkah, we say that it is invalid if too high, but about eruv, we are given the advice to lower it? The details of the Sukkah construction are too numerous; thus, our teacher preferred to say that it is simply invalid rather than offer all possible corrections.
Art: The Flight of the Israelites out of Egypt By Benedetto Caliari
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