Parsha Talk Sukkot 5786 2025

Rabbis Eliot Malomet, Barry Chesler and Jeremy Kalmanofsky

Written comments By Rabbi Barry Chesler

On Tuesday afternoon, the first day of Sukkot, Midway Jewish Center had a commemorative service, marking the 2nd anniversary of October 7. I delivered the remarks below, a lightly edited version of the remarks I delivered at Schechter School of Long Island the previous week:

Fifty-two years ago this past Thursday on the Jewish calendar, war broke out in Israel as soldiers from Egypt and Syria crossed the borders established by the 6-Day War into Israel. On the holiest day of the year, Israel was attacked. That year the Book of Life was inscribed with the blood of Israel’s soldiers, and Yom Kippur has never been quite the same. Fifty years and two days later on the English calendar, war again broke out in Israel with the invasion of Hamas terrorists into Israel, murdering indiscriminately over a thousand people: Israelis and non-Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, civilians and soldiers. This time the holy day was Sh’mini Atzeret/Simhat Torah in Israel, Sh’mini Atzeret in the Diaspora, the culmination of זמן שמחתנו [z’man simhateinu], the season of our rejoicing. This year, October 7 falls on the first day of סוכות. Such are the vagaries of the Jewish calendar.

We gather here this afternoon to mark, to commemorate that terrible day in Israeli and Jewish history, just after the sacred time of Yom Kippur, now on the sacred time of סוכות [sukkot]. The psalmist remarked: אשא עיני אל ההרים מאין יבוא עזרי [e’sa einai el he-harim mai-ayin yavo ezri (Psalms 121:1)] . How do we punctuate this text: Is it, “I lift my eyes to the mountains from where my help comes”, or, is it, “I lift my eyes to the mountains; is this from where my help comes?”. Is it true that our help comes from the mountains or are we wondering if that is from where our help will come. The psalmist assures us in the next verse that his help, our help, indeed comes from God, the maker of heaven and earth. On the page, verse 2 assuredly follows verse 1, but how do we, in our existential moment, get from verse 1 to verse 2? How do we turn an anxious question into a declaration of faith? of truth?

In good times and in bad, we turn to תורה [torah], understood broadly as the record of God’s conversation with the Jewish people. The question is raised, when a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet up on a road that only allows one to pass at a time, which procession has priority? The answer in the legal literature is the wedding procession. Joy comes before grief, so to speak, perhaps because death is permanent whereas joy is temporary. We must seize the moments for joy in our life, sometimes even amidst our grief.

Indeed, the holiday of סוכות [Sukkot], זמן שמחתנו [z’man simhateinu], labeled the season of joy in our liturgy, is a time when we are commanded to be joyful. Why is that? For the Israelite farmer who has completed his harvest, the joy can quickly turn into anxiety as he wonders if the coming rainy season will provide enough water for next year’s farming season. And that anxiety can turn into despair, a despair that is not rooted in reality, but in not knowing. So the Torah commands us to be happy, to rejoice, to live in the moment. There will be time to worry later, when we have more information, when the rain actually falls.

So now that סוכות [Sukkot] has arrived, we must find a way to rejoice, even amidst our grief, even amidst our not knowing. This gets us to סוכות [Sukkot], but the path to סוכות [Sukkot] must go through יום כיפור [Yom Kippur]. A story is told by Rabbi Hayyim of Tzantz:

A man had been wandering about in a forest for several days, not knowing which was the right way out. Suddenly he saw a man approaching him. His heart was filled with joy. “Now I shall certainly find out which is the right way,” he thought to himself. When they neared one another, he asked the man, “Brother, tell me which is the right way. I have been wandering about in this forest for several days.”

Said the other to him, “Brother, I do not know the way out either. For I too have been wandering about here for many, many days. But this I can tell you: do not take the way I have been taking, for that will lead you astray. And now let us look for a new way out together.”

Our master added: “So it is with us. One thing I can tell you: the way we have been following this far we ought follow no further, for that way leads one astray. But now let us look for a new way.”

The word תשובה [t’shuvah] is sometimes translated as return, meaning a return to God, but lately I prefer the word reorientation.. When we do תשובה [t’shuvah], we reorient ourselves, we align ourselves, realign ourselves with God. We are glad to be alive on יום כיפור [Yom Kippur], which is why we say שהחיינו [she-heheyanu]. But we realize as individuals and as part of a people, that the path that has brought us here is not the one we want to pursue in the coming year. What we have learned in the past year, in the words of Rabbi Hayyim, is that we want to begin the new year in a different place, a different space. We may slip in the coming year, become disoriented, and find ourselves situated not so far from where we ended the previous year, but now, on יום כיפור [Yom Kippur], we are willing to say, to believe, that we will try something new. We will not travel the same path as before. We declare to ourselves, to God, that we can make changes, even fundamental changes, in our lives, that we can live our lives in the coming year closer to the ideas and ideals which we hold dear.

It is in this spirit that I ask you to think of October 7. That day remains a dark day in our national history. For us, at the Midway Jewish Center, where one of the קדושים [k’doshim], one of the holy ones, Omer Neutra, became Bar Mitzvah, participated and led in USY, where his family was a part of this community we have a personal connection, even if it is indirect. The burden of the living is to carry the dead, who can no longer carry themselves. As long as we make them present, recall them, live in their memory, they are present. And that is their gift to us, the living.

As we enter this season of our rejoicing, let us consecrate ourselves to seeking the path that leads us closer to God, and to each other. Let us find away to rejoice, to celebrate, even with tears, for that is our sacred task, to keep going. Let us, as we entered יום כיפור [Yom Kippur], pray that we find ourselves on a path for the coming year that brings us closer to God and closer to each other.

עם ישראל חי

[am yisra’el hai]

[The people of Israel live]

Syosset, NY

10/07/25

טו תשרי תשפ”ו

[15 Tishri 5786]