The Ten Days of Repentance/Return are bookended by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and so we easily connect them. They are even referred to as the Days of Awe.
But there are two other holidays paired in the month of Tishrei: Yom Kippur and Sukkot. In many ways, Sukkot is the other half of Yom Kippur.
On Yom Kippur we fast; on Sukkot we feast. On Yom Kippur we think of our faults; on Sukkot we are told to be joyful. On Yom Kippur we are inside the synagogue all day; on Sukkot we are outside in the sukkah. On Yom Kippur we sit or stand all day; on Sukkot we dance.
Individuals who observe Yom Kippur without Sukkot are getting only half the message.
There is another connection between Yom Kippur and Sukkot. While we end Yom Kippur with the Ne’ila service, which speaks of the symbolic closing of the gates of heaven to our prayers of repentance and return, there is a tradition that says the period is extended through Sukkot.
Talmud professor Joseph Tabory writes: “Hoshana Raba, the last day of the festival of Sukkot, is considered a day of judgment. According to the Zohar, although one is judged on the Day of Atonement, that verdict is not delivered until the last day of Sukkot, and until then a person may still repent (Zohar, Vayehi, 120a; Truma 142a).
“However, according to the Zohar, the day on which the verdict is delivered is actually Shmini Atzeret, the final day of the festival, and not Hoshana Raba (the day before).
“Hesed le’Avraham explains the contradiction as follows: The last chance to change one’s judgment is actually Hoshana Raba; whoever has not yet repented by then has his verdict handed down on Shmini Atzeret....
“Some mahzorim already lent expression to the special status of Hoshana Raba in the High Holy Days prayer ‘U’netaneh Tokef,’ having the following version: ‘On Rosh Hashanah judgment is made, and on Yom Kippur it is written, and on Hoshana Raba it is sealed’.”
While we have examined the connection of Sukkot to Yom Kippur, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, aka Reb Zalman, makes a connection between Sukkot and Passover. He teaches that on Sukkot we go into the mitzvah (the sukkah), while on Passover the mitzvah (matzah) goes into us.
Another connection between Sukkot and Passover: on both we invite guests. Each night on Sukkot we invite real guests, as well as symbolic guests from our biblical past – Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, Moses and Hannah, Miriam and Aaron, Esther and Joseph, Rachel and David.
Author Lesli Koppelman Ross writes, “Maimonides admonished that anyone who sits comfortably with his family within his own walls and does not share with the poor is performing a mitzvah not for joy but for the stomach. In addition to extending personal invitations to the needy (in former times it was customary to have at least one poor person at a Sukkot meal; today donation of funds often is a substitute), we open our homes symbolically.”
Relatedly, at the beginning of the Seder we say, “Let all who are hungry come and eat.”
This all points to the great concern Judaism has for the most vulnerable in society. In Leviticus (19:9-10) we are told:
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger; I am the Lord your God.”
We also read, “Give to the needy readily and have no regrets when you do so, for in return the Eternal your God will bless you in all your efforts and in all your undertakings” (Deuteronomy 15:10).
“When you are asked in the world to come, ‘What was your work?’ and you answer: ‘I fed the hungry,’ you will be told: ‘This is the gate of the Lord, enter into it, you who have fed the hungry’” (Midrash Psalms 118:17).
As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks summarizes, “[A] free society is a moral achievement. The paradoxical truth is that a society is strong when it cares for the weak, rich when it cares for the poor, and invulnerable when it takes care of the vulnerable.”
ON SUKKOT we build a sukkah, a vulnerable structure that we are told to live in during the weeklong festival.
We do so to remind ourselves that any structure – no matter how strong and, we assume, permanent (even our homes) – can be vulnerable.
The vulnerable sukkah also reminds us of the 84 million forcibly displaced people around the world who, if they are lucky, have found temporary shelter somewhere. To that staggering number we must add people made homeless due to economics, mental health or other issues.
We extend the penitential period beyond Yom Kippur and into Sukkot to remind ourselves that sometimes the task is so great we need more time.
As we each sit in our sukkah this year, knowing that most of us will be able to return to stable homes, let us not only think of those less fortunate when it comes to a permanent, safe roof over their heads. Let us also develop and act in tangible ways so that we, as individuals and societies, can address this worldwide scourge.
The open-air sukkah invokes Sarah and Abraham, who, we are told, opened their tent on all sides during the day so they could see and welcome those on the move. The Talmud (Shabbat 127a) tells us, in the context of Abraham and Sarah welcoming those individuals, that “receiving guests is greater than greeting the Divine Presence.”
As we sit in the shade of our sukkah, let us remember that our response to refugees and the homeless is holy work.
The writer is rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation, Manchester Center, Vermont, and a faculty member of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Bennington College.