The foundational claim of the Zohar — that the seven clouds of glory accompanying Israel in the wilderness are themselves described as bonds of faith (קשרי האמונה), and that the verse 'in its shade I delighted and sat' (Shir HaShirim 2:3) means sitting beneath the shade of that faith — is what gives the sukkah its identity as tzila d'mehemnusa, the shade of faith, as the Zohar (Emor 103a–103b) states, with the Sulam (Zohar Emor 264) clarifying that those seven clouds correspond to the seven sefirot from chesed through malkhut, the Shekhinah being the cloud that holds the other six together.
The scriptural basis for linking the sukkah to the clouds of glory rests on the persistent divine presence over Israel recorded in Shemot 13:21–22, the cloud covering the Tabernacle throughout every journey described in Shemot 40:34–38 and Bamidbar 9:15–23, and Ezra's liturgical rehearsal of that faithfulness in Nechemiah 9:19 — all of which the Gemara in Sukkah 11b draws on when presenting the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer that 'I caused the children of Israel to dwell in sukkot' refers to ananei kavod, clouds of glory, rather than physical booths.
Among the Rishonim, Rashi (Vayikra 23:43) identifies the sukkot of the verse directly with the clouds of glory; the Ramban (Vayikra 23:43) endorses this as the correct peshat interpretation and connects it to the future promise in Yeshayahu where a cloud by day and a sukkah of shade are linked; רבינו בחיי, כד הקמח סוכה elaborates that the seven clouds correspond to the seven clouds surrounding the Throne of Glory itself; and the Tur (Orach Chayim 625) and Levush (Orach Chayim 625:1) both rule that the sukkah is instituted as a memorial to the miraculous protective enclosure of those clouds.
The Mekhilta underscores the enveloping quality of those clouds: Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Beshalach 1:20 teaches that God spread seven clouds of glory over Israel as a canopy, citing the verse 'He spread a cloud as a screen and fire to illuminate the night' (Tehillim 105:39), while Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 1:18 records that even Yehoshua had to step out from beneath the cloud in order to engage Amalek — making vivid how completely Israel was sheltered within it.
The Sefer HaChinukh and later authorities extend the commemorative rationale: Sefer HaChinukh (325) states that the mitzvah's root is to recall the miracles God performed in the wilderness, specifically that He covered Israel with clouds of glory shielding them from the sun's heat by day and frost by night, and Rav Eliezer Melamed (Peninei Halakhah, Sukkot 1:4) emphasizes that the clouds of glory expressed God's love — a dwelling of the Shekhinah in Israel's midst — citing both the Ramban and the tradition of seven clouds arranged in all directions and above and below.
Derekh Hashem (Part Four, On Seasonal Commandments:2) develops the spiritual dimension most fully among the later authorities: the clouds of glory not only provided physical protection but generated a spiritual consequence — Israel was lifted and separated from the earth and elevated above all the nations, and this light of holiness that surrounded and distinguished every righteous member of Israel is renewed each year at the festival of Sukkot.
Rav Gavriel Zinner (Nitei Gavriel, Sukkos, perek 57) draws directly on the Zohar's language, ruling that the sukkah is called tzila d'mehemnusa — the shade of faith — alluded to in Shir HaShirim's 'I sat in its shade,' which encompasses both the shade of Torah and the shade of the sukkah, and affirming that although invisible, the divine cloud genuinely rests over those who dwell in the sukkah for its sake.
Rav Moshe David Valle's own treatment in Valle, Inyanei Sukkos p. 3 explains that the sukkah serves as a memorial to the clouds of glory that sheltered Israel at the Shemot, and carries the deeper secret that those who were once strangers in the divine order become full citizens of the holy unity of the Holy One and the Shekhinah once their rectification is complete; Valle, Inyanei Sukkos p. 19 adds that on the fifteenth of Tishrei the collective soul of Israel receives surrounding transcendent lights that protect the rectification of the preceding ten days, and that the festival itself is named Sukkot after those encompassing protective lights; Valle, Inyanei Sukkos p. 32 details how the male and female principles are perfected through the seven days of the sukkah and lulav, preparing for complete union on Shemini Atzeret; and Valle, Inyanei Sukkos p. 36 closes by insisting that the drawing-down of divine blessing through the sukkah must be performed with joy, since Israel's past failure lay not in neglecting the commandments entirely but in failing to observe them with gladness.
The Hasidic sources deepen the parallel between shade and cloud: Maamarim Melukatim (Ayin Beis, Ohr l'Yud-Gimel Tishrei 5741) concludes that the sukkah functions as shade analogous to the clouds of glory — and specifically that the sukkah covering must provide shade exceeding its heat, mirroring the Yom Kippur incense-offering whose cloud-like shade took precedence over the heat of sacrifice; while Hemshech Ayin Beis 5674 (Leil Beis d'Chag HaSukkos) teaches that the mitzvah of sukkah fulfills Abraham's act of leaning under the tree, for which God repaid his descendants with the clouds of glory in the wilderness, the sukkot in settled times, and the future sukkah of shade — and that a sukkah built under an actual tree is disqualified precisely because both represent the same divine mode of encompassing light, and one cannot double the same covering upon itself.
Tzitz Eliezer (7:31) records that the Beit Elohim writes that the mitzvah of sukkah alludes to the clouds of glory that surrounded Israel throughout their forty years in the wilderness, and raises the possibility that this observance may have been practiced annually in the desert itself as a memorial to that very phenomenon.
