Just as the High Holidays demand that we are torn down to our core, Sukkot is an opportunity to build back up once again with renewed intentionality. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (ז"ל) called Sukkot, “the festival of insecurity,” saying that the fragile, impermanent sukkot we build for the holiday is a reminder that “[s]ecurity is not something we can achieve physically but it is something we can acquire mentally, psychologically, spiritually.” (Koren Sacks Sukkot Machzor) Sukkot is a holiday of radical vulnerability and in that vulnerability, we find our greatest strength. It is both a testament to our createdness within the natural world and an invitation to take an active role in its building. The sukkah we build is both exposed to the elements and open to visitors. We invite in ushpizin, Sukkot guests, — ancestors, friends, and strangers alike — in accordance with humanity’s shared precarious position in the world which we inhabit together. Dr. Brene Brown, herself a prophet of the power in vulnerability, writes, “[o]ur deepest human need is to be seen by other people — to really be seen and known by someone else. And if we’re so armored up, and we walk through the world with an armored front, we can’t be seen.” Sukkot is an invitation to take off our armor, to exit the our permanent, comfortable edifices, and to reconnect with the natural world as well as our fellow human beings. May we all joyously accept this invitation in the spirit of building an olam chesed, a world of lovingkindness.
Moadim L'simcha,
Rabbi Preston Neimeiser
