Rabbi's Chayva's Chat

When Yom Kippur ended and the day was done, I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I was still excited by the beautiful community connections, the warmth of being together, the spiritual moments both in services and in the afternoon programs, and the happy kids dancing at the family services and wide-eyed before the shofar. Over and over I had the same wonderful conversation: “Being here today feels great!” Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were even more beautiful than I dreamed them to be.

Now we have come to the first day of Sukkot, which will continue through next Wednesday night. The Am Tikvah sukkah is up and the fruit and artistic decorations are swaying in the breeze. It’s yours to use; don’t forget we have the Sukkah sign-up sheet so that you can reserve a time. My personal goal is to have as many meetings and meals in the sukkah as possible, so if you’d like to have coffee or tea, I would love that - email me (rabbi@amtikvah.org) or call/text me (415-664-7374).

Last year, we decorated the sukkah with banned book titles to bring attention to Banned Books Week (which this year was October 5-11). This year, I’m sitting with the words from the Hashkiveinu prayer that speak of a sacred sukkat shalom, a shelter of peace. My prayer this year is that all of our sukkahs (sukkot), at Am Tikvah and around the world, will be shelters of peace, and shelters that teach us what we need to be peacemakers.

We need peace so badly. A lot has happened since I last wrote about the war on September 5, following the deaths of Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages. Israel and Hezbollah have escalated from trading rockets and short range fire over the border. Now Israel is conducting a ground invasion of Lebanon and aerial bombing of Beirut in an effort to eradicate Hezbollah from Lebanon and make the north of Israel a safe place to live again. Hezbollah has successfully used a drone to bomb an Israeli military base near Haifa, has killed and wounded Israeli citizens in the north; Hamas continues to fight in Gaza and encourage more of the civilian terrorism attacks such as we’ve seen in Hadera; and Iran has launched another barrage of 200 missiles at Israel, depleting its air defenses (which the United States has now partially resupplied). The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has intensified to intolerable levels, and violence is flaring in the West Bank. Finally, today Israel announced that Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, has been killed in a firefight, which is perhaps the final leader on Israel’s target list following the deaths Hassan Nasrallah (leader of Hezbollah), Mohammed Deif (military leader of Hamas), Ismail Haniyeh (political leader of Hamas), and Abbas Nilforoushan (Commander of the Iranian Quds Force in Lebanon). 

This is the most extensive war Israel has seen in decades, and it calls us to be peacemakers. Let us not celebrate death, as Proverbs 24:17 says, “If your enemy falls, do not rejoice.” Rather, let us hope that we will soon see an end to the war and the return of the surviving hostages, as Proverbs 24:11 says, “If you refrain from rescuing those taken away to be killed, the Holy One who watches over your life will know it and take account of it.” May the permeability of the sukkah remind us of our vulnerability, and furthermore, the vulnerability of all who live in makeshift shelters, longing for a safe and stable home. May the tradition of inviting in ushpizin (guests) into the sukkah remind us to be warm and hospitable to loved ones and newcomers alike. Through all of these acts, we will turn our sukkah from a simple hut into a true sukkat shalom, a sukkah of peace. Chag Sukkot Sameach.