For many rabbis, the day after Yom Kippur brings a sense of relief. The sermons we wrote have been delivered, they either resonated or they didn’t, and now they are in the past. This year, like everything else, this sense of relief is tinged with a deep sadness. Five days after Yom Kippur comes the Feast of Booths, Sukkot, which is named by some as the holiday of joy. Every year for the past five years or so, I would rejoice with friends at a beautiful retreat center, and then make a pilgrimage to my family in Toronto, echoing the pilgrimages to Jerusalem every Sukkot, more than 2000 years ago. This year I am not going to Toronto, or for that matter Jerusalem; I am building a sukkah, a booth, in my driveway, by my dogwood tree, which is now tinged red.
My son Boaz is home this year helping me design this booth, measuring the planks, planning the art we will hang up, and coding computer apps highlighting the important elements of this holiday. This year we will have no guests in our sukkah, but I won’t be lonely; I have four kids, a spouse with a beautiful voice, and delicious blueberries to eat. There will be laughter and joy in our sukkah. Once again, though, this joy will be inwardly directed. Too much this year has been inwardly directed, and our balance is increasingly warped. When will this end we ask ourselves again and again. And yet, I continue to believe that just like the sukkah/ booth, this is temporary, that one day, soon, I will take off my mask, give my brother a hug, and cry on his shoulder.
