ASBI Pocket Beit Midrash: Aruch HaShulchan Laws of Sukkot 625:3

And this is the explanation and the reason why we were commanded to make sukkot in the image of the sukkot that were made for them in the desert, so as to reveal and publicize the greatness of Israel in the desert by means of the mitzvah of the sukkah. For an entire populous nation, men, women, and children, tens of thousands in a place where by nature people should not be. As Scripture calls it, "a place without grain." And the prophet similarly said to Israel (Jeremiah 2:31), "Have I been like a desert to Israel, Or like a land of deep gloom?" That is to say, in the desert I prepared everything for them and nothing was lacking. Just as Moshe said in Parashat Devarim, "He has watched over your wanderings through this great wilderness; the LORD your God has been with you these past forty years: you have lacked nothing."

We find that the essence of this mitzvah is to remember the great journey in th edesert, which was not only through a place without vegetation, but they did not even have permanent housing, rather mere sukkot. And this is why we are commanded to build sukkot in their model, so that we remember the greatness of God's supervision and protection after we left Egyptl

(2) Go proclaim to Jerusalem: Thus said Adonai: I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride— How you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.