Sukkot and salvation

There is a mushal (parable) my father recounted to me about Jewish priorities. In it, there are three brothers: one a pious scholar, scrupulous in his observance of mitzvot and constantly engaged in study; the next moved to a kibbutz at a young age and became a war hero in the IDF; the third was a socialist, tirelessly crusading for the rights of the poor and oppressed and pursuing a utopian vision. These seem to me to represent the personal, national, and universal aspirations of the Jews, respectively, a set that we also find in the holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot is the culmination and intersection of two triads of holidays: the shalosh regalim (pilgrimage festivals), retelling the narrative of national redemption, and the holidays of Tishrei (seventh month of the calendar), through which we seek personal redemption. The sacrificial service of Sukkot is dominated by the seventy bulls brought up over the course of the week, traditionally corresponding to the seventy nations of the world and connecting to universal redemption. Further on that point, there are prophecies that Sukkot is the holiday on which the nations will gather in the messianic era to bring their offerings to the Beit HaMikdash (Temple). I would argue that Sukkot is the primary holiday of redemption and salvation, at least until Yuval (the jubilee year) is reestablished. So, what can we learn about Jewish attitudes toward these themes from the rites of the festival?
On the one hand, there seems to be a surprising degree of passivity. One of the main lessons of the sukkah is related to the pasuk (verse) from the 127th perek of Tehillim (Psalm 127) "If Hashem does not build a house, its builders toil in vain". We work to protect ourselves from danger and deprivation, and rightly so, but in truth our protection comes from Hashem. In the midbar (wilderness), this grace took the form of an open miracle, with ananei hakavod (clouds of glory) surrounding us, munn (manna) precipitating for our food, and a miraculous well following us around for water. Today, the miracle is hidden, but is it not somewhat miraculous that we have secure houses, and access to plentiful food and clean water? Thus, in remembrance of the miracles of the midbar and recognition that we are just as reliant on God today as then, we remove ourselves from the security that we imagine we have created, and trust in God to make flimsy shchach into a shelter. This message is reinforced by the reading of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), where Shlomo hamelech (King Solomon) teaches that all the works of man are as insubstantial as a breath, soon to pass into nothingness and be forgotten. If we are so impotent and our deeds so worthless, surely redemption is just a matter of being grateful to God for what we have, and having bitachon and emunah (trust and faith) that he will provide in the future, right?
But then there is the other hand, as there always is. The lulav is the only mitzvah with the requirement that it be hadar (beautiful). We are commanded to have festive meals, and there is a strong tradition to have guests. Some other names of the holiday are chag ha'asif (the holiday of gathering) and zman simchateinu (time of our joy). We seem to have a hearty harvest festival, celebrating the very things that Kohelet decries as havel havalim (nothingness, sort of). What does this have to do with salvation, and how can we reconcile these messages?
We make an okimta (qualification) on Kohelet. Shlomo does not, in the end, conclude that sensual pleasure, hard work, personal relationships, and wise erudition are havel havalim in all cases. He only condemns them for their own sake, as purely human endeavors. There is nothing new under the sun, so the only way to bring about true change is to invite involvement from elsewhere. We are capable of being partners with God, and only when we do so do our actions have any point. The contrapositive of our pasuk from Tehillim says, "If the workers do not toil in vain, then Hashem builds the house". One interpretation of the arba minim (four species of the lulav) is that they represent the four letters of the tetragrammaton, and we are commanded to gather them together and raise them up. Thus, through our own agency we can take letters that are meaningless on their own (not strictly true, symbolism of individual letters some other time), and we use them to reveal and elevate Shem HaShem (the name of God) in the world.

Heard an interesting anecdote about the Rosh Yeshiva. One purim, when he was deep in his cups, a very drunk bochur asked why he had founded Shapell's. The answer given: "to make you guys normal". Not sure what to make of it. Anyway, Sukkot in the yeshiva is fun. We had our first rain of the year yesterday, soaking my mattress, which was not ideal, but the rain itself was lovely and quite pleasant. It was rather odd keeping two days in Israel. Even in our foreigner bubble of yeshiva bochurim, enough were gone for the holiday or definitely making aliyah or relying on lenient opinions that we only had six of us. Had to go to a hotel for minyan, which was a little weird, but we made some nice, intimate seudot (meals) and sang zemirot until the sukkah started filling up with people who wanted to sleep. I made sure to have some of each of the five fruits at both meals, in honor of the harvest festival aspect. Shabbat was very eventful. Friday night, my dinner-buddy and I got lost looking for our host's shul in Har Nof (try asking someone in Har Nof for the shul at the top of the stairs...) and ended up being invited to eat with a family of Bobover chassidim. Very friendly bunch. I am fairly certain that some of the dvars they shared must have been at least partly meant in jest (Jewish souls have trouble claiming before the heavenly court that they were tricked by the yetzer hara, because everyone knows that Jews are shrewd businessmen and wouldn't be taken in, but then Sukkot comes and we get outrageously ripped off paying for lulav and etrog, so the court accepts our plea; the mishna says that anger is like idolatry because the righteous tannaim were jealous that sinners could get such merit from teshuva, but they realized that they could just draw equivalences between the lesser sins that they did commit and the greater sins that they did not, and thus get to do equally meritorious teshuva). Saturday, our host took us to another family's for dessert, and that family was hosting seminary girls, so I actually got to have a conversation. It felt a little uncomfortable, and at first I was worried that the yeshiva was succeeding at breaking me of the habit, but then I realized that it was the same discomfort I always feel when making conversation with people that I know I will not have enough interaction with to make friends. Today we had the yeshiva's shimchat beit hashoeva (chol hamoed (intermediate days) celebration remembering the nisuch hamayim (water libation)), with a solid hour, hour-and-a-half of intense dancing, half the time with rabbis' small children on my shoulders. Good times. Have to go out to one of the public ones tomorrow, last day to see what it is like. The yeshiva recommends Belz, Toldos Aharon, and Karlin-Stolin. Any advice?

My goodness, look at all those words. I suppose that'll do for now.