Sukkot 1
/The power of Sukkot is that it
takes us back to the most
elemental roots of our being.
• You don’t need to live in a palace
to be surrounded by clouds of
glory.
• You don’t need to be rich to buy
yourself the same leaves and fruit
that a billionaire uses in
worshipping G-d.
Living in the sukkah and inviting
guests to your meal,
you discover
such is the premise of
Ushpizin,
the mystical guests
that the people who have come to
visit you are none other than
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and
their wives.
What makes a hut more beautiful
than a home is that when it comes
to Sukkot there is no difference
between
• the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor.
• We are all strangers on earth,
temporary residents in G-d’s
almost eternal universe.
And
• whether or not we are capable of pleasure,
• whether or not we have found
happiness, nonetheless we can all
feel joy.
Sukkot is the time we ask the most
profound question of what makes
a life worth living.
Having prayed on Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur to be written in
the Book of Life,
Kohelet forces us to remember
how brief life actually is,
and how vulnerable.
“Teach us to number our days that
we may get a heart of wisdom.”
What matters is not
how long we live,
but
how intensely we feel that life is a
gift we repay by giving to others.
Joy, the overwhelming theme of
the festival,
is what we feel when we know that
it is a privilege simply to be alive,
Most majestically of all, Sukkot is
the festival of insecurity.
such as is it going to rain
Indeed,
while in the Sukkah,....
It is the candid acknowledgment
that there is no life without risk,
yet we can face the future without
fear when we know we are not
alone.
G-d is with us,
• in the rain that brings blessings
to the earth,
• in the love that brought the universe and us into being,
and
• in the resilience of spirit that
allowed a small and vulnerable
people to outlive the greatest
empires the world has ever known.
Sukkot reminds us that
G- d’s glory was present in the
small, portable Tabernacle Moses
and the Israelites built in the
desert even more emphatically
than in Solomon’s Temple with all
its grandeur.
A Temple can be destroyed.
But a sukkah, broken,
can be rebuilt tomorrow.
Security is not something we can
achieve physically
but it is something we can acquire
mentally,
psychologically,
spiritually.
All it needs is the courage and
willingness to sit under the
shadow of G-d’s sheltering wings.
I wish you all a Chag Sameach and
ahead.
continued blessings for the year
Best Regards
Jean-Pierre FETTMANN