Your kids Sukkah decoration is terrible ….. and it’s perfect

I want to show you something. These are the ' circle projects' my kids made. A few days ago, they returned home from school overwhelmed with joy with these in their hands. You know how it is when kids come home from a project ? They almost ran to get inside the door. "Dad, Dad, look what I made!" And they took it out of the bag , with huge smiles on their faces, and the joy in their eyes as if they were displaying a work of art. And I look at it and think, this is not exactly the Mona Lisa. The colors are not even close to the lines. The glue is all sticking to the opposite side. The sparkling stones are placed in places that look like they should n't be there. The use of color did not follow any rules. Maybe you see a blue stop sign, a purple tree, and a green sun. But do you think I ever looked at it and thought, "Really, a blue stop sign?" " Could n't you color inside the lines?" "What happened here?" Of course not. I love it. I really love it. Do you want to know why? Because my child made it. This is why. That is the only reason. The holiest children in the world sat at a foot-high table, did the best they could with their little hands, with Crayola, glue, and glitter, and they came running home because they could n't wait to show me. And since I love my child, the things my child makes are also dear to me. I'm not looking for flaws. I almost never see them. They are children. I look at their faces. I see their excitement. I look at the piece of paper and think, " My child made this for the sukkah. " And so, it is nothing less than a masterpiece. Why do we sometimes imagine that God views his children differently than this ? We are each going to enter the sukkah with our own decorations. No, these are not ordinary pieces of paper covered in glue and glitter. We decorate our lives through our work. The Torah we learned this year, the prayers we prayed , the donations we made in secret, the stopping ourselves when we should n't have said something, being a little more careful on Shabbat, the blessings we said with attention, the minutes we spent studying even though we didn't have time to catch our breath during the busyness of the day, and the times you failed and got back up again— those are our adornments. These are the decorations of our sukkah. And sometimes we look at them and feel embarrassed, because we know what they look like up close. Look at this mess. Look how many times I've colored outside the lines. Look how many words I pronounced unclearly while reading Shamona Esrei. Look how many times I've changed my mind. Look at the things I said I would change but did n't. Look at all the places where the colors do n't match. Look at the glue marks. Look at all the mistakes. And we imagine Hashem standing in heaven with a giant red pen, examining our actions and drawing circles over our mistakes. Are you crazy? He is your father. He loves you more deeply than your own child. Do you think Hashem will not evaluate your work because it is not perfect ? What kind of father do you consider Hashem to be? Do you think that Hashem doesn't see your learned Torah because you haven't read enough ? Do you think He does n't value your prayers because you made mistakes in other prayers? Do you think he doesn't value your mitzvah because you could have done better ? He knows how difficult it was. He knows what you were struggling with. He knows what world you live in. He knows how much effort you had to put in to take up the challenge again and try again. And perhaps this is something we should pause to think about as we enter the sukkah. Look at all those decorations hanging on the walls. Some are very beautiful, some are not so beautiful. Some are crooked, some are faded, some have been hanging in your family's sukkah for 22 years and no one even remembers whose child made them. But we never throw them away , because our children made them. Hashem looks at us in exactly the same way. Hashem looks at the Sukkah and sees something we do not see. He sees his children sitting under the tree , each of us carrying the burden of a year's worth of unfinished small tasks : a mitzvah here, a tefillah there, a little Torah, a little kindness, some beautiful moments, some crooked spots, and a lot of coloring outside the lines. And maybe we're sitting there thinking, "Whatever is going to happen, will happen. " I'm just a simple, messy decoration in the sukkah. When Hashem is lifting you up high in heaven and saying, "Look what my child has created." How precious, how sacred. So, this Sukkot, bring your decorations to the Sukkah , the pretty ones, the messy ones, and even the ones where you painted completely outside the lines. Do n't be shy about showing them to your dad, because when my child comes running to me with a piece of paper covered in glue and glitter , I do n't see the mistakes. I see the love of my child's heart on a piece of paper. And this is how the Creator sees us. We see where we have fallen short. We see what opportunities we had to do better. The Creator sees a child who repeatedly picks up the crayon. Maybe this is the decoration he loves the most.