Shabbat Sukkot

            Shabbat Shalom! This week we celebrate Sukkot, a time of great uncertainty in our ancestors’ history, and a thanksgiving of our bounty even in times of scarcity. These themes are resonating especially deeply with me personally this year. As many of you know, I traveled to my childhood home this week to help provide some support to my parents while my father recovered from a significant surgery. We are filled with gratitude for all the blessings and well-wishes from friends and family, grateful to the doctors and nurses who are able to be God’s hands in healing, and just so relieved that everything went so smoothly.

            So often we take our health and our loved ones for granted. We expect that what we need will always be there and sometimes even when it isn’t we might find ourselves responding with entitled demands instead of grit and patience. When the Israelites left Egypt, despite their freedom and safety awarded to them by God, they whined about the lack of meat and feared their wandering huts would not protect them from the desert heat. In the holiday reading for Sukkot Shabbat, Moses demands to see God’s face despite having already seen so many of God’s wonders. Sometimes it’s only when the things closest to our hearts are in peril that we realize how precarious life can be, and how truly fortunate we are when we are able to get the support and stability that we need to live long, healthy, happy lives.

            This Sukkot, take stock of the things in your life that sustains and comforts you. Remember to be grateful for what you have and keep ever striving to help others find that which they need to sustain themselves as well. May we all find ourselves protected by the shelter of Shekhina this fall and throughout the year.