Every building in Israel is required to have access to a bomb shelter. These are not necessarily separate structures but safe spaces inside stairwells and showers, where in the event of an attack, people will be safe. Depending on where the missile is coming from or where in Israel a person is living, a person might have a matter of seconds or minutes to get to safety. It is therefore imperative that these shelters be widely available and easy to get to. Sadly, having spent so much time in them these past few years, Israeli children may be as familiar with their individual bomb shelters as they are of their own homes.
At this time of year, there is another building structure that is just as ubiquitous all around Israel – Sukkot. They abound in every street, in every corner, from the Golan Heights to Eilat, clear markers of the joyous fall festival that begins this Friday night. Unlike a bomb shelter, a Sukkah is not designed to keep us safe. It is deliberately meant to be flimsy, with the walls and ceiling often only held together with strings and tape. There is no illusion of safety when sitting our replicas of ancient booths. Not only will they not protect you from modern day missiles, but they won’t even fully protect you from normal rain or wind.
In a Sukkah, we are exposed and vulnerable and that is the point. We are declaring to ourselves and to the world that ultimately nothing fully keeps us safe except for God. Sitting in our Sukkahs, we gather joyfully, celebrating life in spite of its many dangers. As we mark the moment in our People’s journey when we have made our Exodus from Egypt, only to spend forty years wandering in the wilderness, we momentarily disregard our hardships and focus on our freedom.
In a few weeks we will mark the third anniversary of the October 7th attack. This has been a time of great turmoil for Jews in Israel and throughout the world. But no matter what has transpired or what will transpire, when Sukkot rolls around in the calendar, we will continue to come out of our bomb shelters and into our sukkahs, singing, eating, and enjoying life.
Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex