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As many of you saw last year, I love the joy-filled holiday of Purim. Fortunately, Sukkot, known as z’man simchateinu (the time of our joy), also represents a time to come together as a community and express delight. In addition to the festivity, it ranks among my favorite holidays because of its focus on justice. Sukkot reminds us that in our time of greatest abundance, we need to attend to people in need.
In fact, Moses Maimonides expresses that one fails to observe Sukkot without accounting for people with fewer resources. In his legal code the Mishneh Torah, he stipulates:
וּכְשֶׁהוּא אוֹכֵל וְשׁוֹתֶה חַיָּב לְהַאֲכִיל לַגֵּר לַיָּתוֹם וְלָאַלְמָנָה עִם שְׁאָר הָעֲנִיִּים הָאֻמְלָלִים. אֲבָל מִי שֶׁנּוֹעֵל דַּלְתוֹת חֲצֵרוֹ וְאוֹכֵל וְשׁוֹתֶה הוּא וּבָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֵינוֹ מַאֲכִיל וּמַשְׁקֶה לַעֲנִיִּים וּלְמָרֵי נֶפֶשׁ אֵין זוֹ שִׂמְחַת מִצְוָה אֶלָּא שִׂמְחַת כְּרֵסוֹ
When a person eats and drinks [in celebration of the holiday], one is obligated to feed converts, orphans, widows, and others who are destitute and poor. In contrast, a person who locks the gates of one’s courtyard and eats and drinks with one’s children and partner, without feeding the poor and the embittered, is not engaging in the rejoicing associated with a mitzvah, but rather the rejoicing of one’s gut.
Sukkot not only asks us to collect the fall harvest to enjoy with others but also compels us to dwell in humbling huts and welcome those with less in our communities. Altogether, the festival prompts us to reflect deeply on the privileges of food and shelter, shifting how we relate to those who lack them.
As we enter our temporary dwellings this year, New Yorkers face an affordable housing and homelessness crisis. In Manhattan, the average rental price for a one-bedroom apartment is $4,443. In central Brooklyn, near where I live, one owner has filed to evict more than a third of the 2,500 households in his housing complex since 2022. The number of homeless New Yorkers is staggeringly high, and the city remains unsure how to house more than 60,000 recently arrived migrants.
Unfortunately, the state government enacted a budget without addressing housing this summer, and the city budget process resulted in $92 million in cuts for the Department of Homelessness Services and $34 million in cuts for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Soaring prices, widespread evictions, and pervasive homelessness constitute an emergency, and this Sukkot, we cannot lock our gates, rejoice, and permit the status quo to persist.
Maimonides taught us to feel obligated to those in need during Sukkot. In the early 1990s, LGBTQ+ AIDS activists established Housing Works because they viewed stable, affordable housing as an essential part of a person’s well-being.
CBST has a well-established history of working toward immigrant justice and housing justice. This Sukkot, I hope our congregation continues to reflect deeply on housing and decide how we will meet the needs of our time. During z’man simchateinu, I pray that we adopt a new plan of action so that every New Yorker finds a home.
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