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During the high holidays, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, we looked inward and focused on our personal teshuva, our own wrongdoings throughout the past year. We worked to make amends in order to better ourselves for the future. After this period of self reflection and self improvement, we are commanded to put the first stake of our sukkah into the ground after we finish our break-fast and move towards building our sukkot. Why do we go directly from the 10 days of awe to the festival of Sukkot?
I have always believed that one of the primary reasons for this tradition is that after reflecting on our own wrongdoings and having hope in the ability to change and do better in the coming year, it is time to look outside ourselves and see the world around us, which we cannot avoid doing from our sukkot. We can't help but look to our partnership with Adonai in making the world a better place; we can't help but see outside ourselves through the holes in the roofs and the flimsy walls around us. What is our place in the world? What does our responsibility to making this world a better place entail?
In spite of this hope and belief in our ability to change the world for the better, this Sukkot began with some very tough and painful questions:
- How do we help the hostages, support their families and make sure they all return home?
- How could so many of our friends, that we have fought for and spoken up for, betray us when we needed them most?
- Why has the world been as willing to believe the lies promulgated by Hamas and its sponsors, just as the world gobbled up the lies of Hitler, and stood by watching in silence as 6 million of our people were murdered (a true genocide) not so many generations ago?
However, in spite of these painful questions and the agony of the past two years, today we may be able to breathe again as we have reason to hope and perhaps celebrate the breakthrough announced by President Trump: a U.S.-brokered deal between Israel and Hamas that will include the release of the hostages and a ceasefire.
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