OCTOBER 13 • 2022 | 59

wealthy to buy yourself 
the same leaves and fruit 
that a billionaire uses in 
worshipping God. 
Living in the sukkah 
and inviting guests to your 
meal, you discover that the 
people who have come to 
visit you are none other 
than Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob and their wives (such 
is the premise of Ushpizin, 
the mystical guests). 
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 God’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 when 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 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, inhaling 
the intoxicating beauty of 

this moment amidst the 
profusion of nature, the 
teeming diversity of life 
and the sense of commu-
nion with those many oth-
ers who share our history 
and our hope.
Most majestically of all, 
Sukkot is the festival of 
insecurity. It is the can-
did acknowledgment that 
there is no life without 
risk, yet we can face the 
future without fear when 
we know we are not alone. 
God 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 vul-
nerable people to outlive 
the greatest empires the 
world has ever known. 
Sukkot reminds us that 
God’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, even if bro-
ken, can be rebuilt tomor-
row. Security is not some-
thing we can achieve physi-
cally but it is something we 
can acquire mentally, psy-
chologically, spiritually. All 
it needs is the courage and 
willingness to sit under the 
shadow of God’s sheltering 
wings. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan 

Sacks served as the chief rabbi of 

the United Hebrew Congregations 

of the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. 

His teachings have been made 

available to all at rabbisacks.org. 

This essay was written in 2016.

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