The holiday of Sukkot calls us to rejoice together in a “time of happiness.” Seldom has a call to uplift felt so complicated.
The second anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians falls on the first day of Sukkot this year. It will be a struggle to hold back the breadth of our grief, fear, and worry on a day which invokes such loss – and experience hope and joy during a holiday which calls us to see the good. Yet the possibility of doing so exists within our tradition.
Sukkot – the temporary dwelling places with roofs of branches through to see the stars – will fill balconies across the country and in major cities in Israel.
In North America, they will dot backyards and public spaces. We will celebrate with the Four Species (citron, date palm frond, myrtle, and willow) and pray for rain by holding them together and shaking them in all directions, in a ritual which may even predate Judaism.
After the Exodus
Tradition calls us to welcome guests who seek to join us in dwelling in the sukkah and reconnect with the temporary dwelling places that our ancestors resided in following the Exodus from Egypt.
What we lack in the security of permanent homes, we make up for with a sense of God’s abiding presence, a “sheltering peace” – or, literally, “sukkat shalom” – all around us. We eat, we drink, we rejoice – and we remember.
A Jewish mystical tradition from the Zohar calls us to invite not only guests, but also our spiritual forebears. In this way, we welcome guests near and far, ancient and contemporary, alive and alive in spirit. It is only fitting to include in this invitation those who can only be with us in spirit.
Special sukka guests
This year, as we commemorate the second anniversary of October 7, 2023, we can spiritually invite into our sukkah those who were murdered and those who were injured; those who were taken hostage and those who still are being held against their will. We dwell together in the sheltering peace of our sukkah in the presence of our guests and feel our hearts moved by their presence.
Adapting a prayer from the Rabbinical Assembly, Jewish Federations of North America suggests adding those from our extended Jewish family of families with the following text: “I am honored to welcome to my sukkah Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah; Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David; Miriam, Deborah, and Ruth; and the guests murdered from Nir Oz and Be’eri, the Nova festival and Sderot, and the other Gaza border communities, as well as in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
“We commemorate innocents who died in Iranian attacks and soldiers who fell in the field of battle. We honor those who put themselves in harm’s way to keep Israel safe and those who work tirelessly to secure our Diaspora communities from harm. We welcome in all of the Jewish People, all of whom have suffered in different ways since October 7. We share one sukkah connecting our communities from around the world on this day.”
Inviting our ancestors
We cannot subordinate joy to grief or the other way around. The tradition of inviting our ancestors into our sukkot enables us to feel secure in our connection to our past. Extending it to our friends, relatives, and wider Jewish family ensures that we connect with our more recent history – including the devastation we still feel from two years ago.
Having named our loss and enduring connection, we now have leave to feel as much joy as possible.
In some respects, joy in this season may be an act of resistance.
If the goal of terrorists is to evoke fear, a powerful response may be to find uplift, hope, friendship, and meaning. Giving ourselves permission to do so does not run counter to commemorating our losses, as long as we create space for both side by side. May we find the emotional bandwidth to do so during this sacred week in our sukkot.
Rabbi Michael Uram is chief learning officer of Jewish Federations of North America. Rabbi Joshua Stanton is associate vice president for interfaith and intergroup initiatives at Jewish Federations of North America.