The gemara in Avoda Zara 3b describes how at the End of Days the non-Jewish nations will protest having been deprived of the opportunity to fulfill Hashem’s mitzvos. In response Hashem will give them none other than the mitzvah of Succah to prove their mettle as mitzvah observers.
The non-Jews will enter their respective succahs only to depart in a huff moments later when Hashem harnesses the sun’s intense rays to make those temporary abodes unbearably hot. And the gemara foretells as they storm out of their huts each non-Jew will deliver a frustrated disdainful kick at his succah’s walls.
But doesn’t the halachah itself exempt from this mitzvah one who experiences discomfort in the succah due to heat or cold? The gemara itself poses this question and its rhetorical response is an incisive one: “Exempt they may be — but need they kick at the succah too on their way out?”
In a piyut appearing in the Succos machzor the paytan speaks of Klal Yisrael fulfilling mitzvas Succah “with its measurements … its walls … its s’chach its shade its enterings and exitings.” Its exitings?
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