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Part of the 2026 High Holiday Webinar Series, Past and Presence: Encountering the High Holidays

With Rabbi Naomi Kalish, Harold and Carole Wolfe Director of the Center for Pastoral Education; Assistant Professor of Pastoral Education, 果冻传媒

The High Holiday liturgy repeatedly calls us to confront fear while urging us toward hope, trust, and renewal. Yet for many, these texts can resonate in unexpected攁nd sometimes painful攚ays.

In this session, Rabbi Naomi Kalish, Director of the Program in Spiritual Care and Counseling, 果冻传媒, will explore how the themes of fear and trauma surface throughout the High Holidays, with particular attention to the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, the binding of Isaac,痑nd the recurring language of the Psalms. Drawing on Jewish tradition, contemporary understandings of trauma, and the wisdom of chaplaincy, she will invite participants to consider how we can engage these sacred texts honestly and compassionately, creating space for reflection, healing, and spiritual growth.

果冻传媒 the Series

What does it mean to prepare and show up for the High Holidays in our own time? This three-part series explores how Jewish tradition has preserved, interpreted, and renewed the themes of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur through sacred objects, timeless texts, and personal prayer. Together, we檒l explore the objects that have carried Jewish tradition across centuries, engage with ancient texts with compassion and honesty, and reflect on how our own voices become part of the ongoing story of Jewish prayer and renewal.

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With Rabbi Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections; Assistant Professor, 果冻传媒

What can a medieval prayer book, one of the earliest printed Hebrew mahzorim, and a set of century-old baseball card sized boxing cards teach us about the High Holidays? These three remarkable objects from The 果冻传媒 Library demonstrate how Jewish communities across the centuries have expressed themes of kingship, tradition, strength, repentance, and renewal. Through illuminated manuscripts, early Hebrew printing, and unexpected artifacts of American Jewish life, we檒l discover how material objects preserve memory, shape religious imagination, and offer fresh perspectives on the spiritual work of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  

Led by Rabbi Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, PhD, the Henry R. and Miriam Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections of the 果冻传媒 Library, this presentation will also highlight the new 果冻传媒 Library website, �.�

果冻传媒 the Series

With Rabbi Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections; Assistant Professor, 果冻传媒

What can a medieval prayer book, one of the earliest printed Hebrew mahzorim, and a set of century-old baseball card sized boxing cards teach us about the High Holidays? These three remarkable objects from The 果冻传媒 Library demonstrate how Jewish communities across the centuries have expressed themes of kingship, tradition, strength, repentance, and renewal. Through illuminated manuscripts, early Hebrew printing, and unexpected artifacts of American Jewish life, we檒l discover how material objects preserve memory, shape religious imagination, and offer fresh perspectives on the spiritual work of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  

Led by Rabbi Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, PhD, the Henry R. and Miriam Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections of the 果冻传媒 Library, this presentation will also highlight the new 果冻传媒 Library website, �.�

The Masorah noticed this numerical character as well. Medieval scribes carefully recorded that the parashah contains 168 verses, 1,887 words, and 7,853 letters. Such figures served a practical purpose攖hey helped scribes verify copies of the text. But the Masoretes were hardly alone. Rabbinic literature is full of lists and enumerations. Four New Years. Ten generations from Adam to Noah. Thirty-nine categories of labor prohibited on Shabbat.

The second half of Parashat Pinehas provides an especially clear example. Numbers 28�29 presents the sacrificial calendar in careful sequence. The reader moves from the daily offering to the Sabbath offering, from the Sabbath to the new moon, and from there through the cycle of festivals. Days are counted. Months are counted. Sacrifices are counted. The section reads less like a story than like a schedule.

This calendrical material becomes even more interesting when one remembers that the parashah itself occupies different positions within the calendar. In the Diaspora there are four basic ways in which Pinehas can relate to the Seventeenth of Tammuz. Because of the structure of the Hebrew calendar, Pinehas is sometimes read just before the fast, sometimes just after it, and occasionally within the same week

These variations also affect the way the portion is heard. A congregation reading Pinehas on the nineteenth of Tammuz is already within the period of mourning. A congregation reading it on the fourteenth stands just before it. The text is unchanged, but the setting is not.

That observation leads naturally to the name of the season itself.

In Hebrew, the period between the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av is known as 讘讬谉 讛诪爪专讬诐, “between the straits.” The phrase comes from the Book of Lamentations: “All her pursuers overtook her between the straits.” In its biblical context the image is geographical. Jerusalem has been trapped in a narrow place with no avenue of escape.

Yiddish-speaking Jews often used a different expression. Rather than 讘讬谉 讛诪爪专讬诐, they commonly spoke of 讚讬 讚专讬讬 讜讜讗指讻谉, “the Three Weeks.” The difference is small, but not meaningless.

The two names describe the same period in different ways. The Hebrew term preserves a biblical image of confinement and distress. The Yiddish term simply counts the time. One speaks in metaphor. The other speaks in weeks.

That contrast brings us back to the Mishnah.

Tractate Ta’anit provides the classic framework for this season. It begins with a numerical scheme that would have felt entirely natural to a rabbinic audience: “Five things happened to our ancestors on the Seventeenth of Tammuz, and five on the Ninth of Av.”

The events themselves range across many centuries. Some belong to the biblical period. Others belong to the Roman era. Historians may question whether they occurred on the precise dates assigned to them. The Mishnah’s purpose, however, is not chronology. It is organization. A scattered collection of national disasters is arranged into two groups of five.

The chapter then turns to mourning practices associated with the Ninth of Av. At that point the reader might reasonably expect the tractate to conclude with destruction, exile, and grief.

Instead, it takes a sharp turn.

The very next mishnah opens with the declaration: “There were no festivals for Israel like the Fifteenth of Av [1]and Yom Kippur.”

The shift is striking. One moment the Mishnah is discussing catastrophe. A few lines later, young women dressed in borrowed white garments are dancing in the vineyards. The movement is so abrupt that it has puzzled readers for centuries.

Scholars including Paul Mandel have suggested that the reference to Yom Kippur may be a later editorial addition. While not everyone accepted Mandel’s proposal, the larger question remains: Why conclude a discussion of national catastrophe with courtship and dancing?

That tension brings us back once more to Parashat Pine岣s. The portion is remembered for its laws of sacrifice and festivals. The Three Weeks commemorate the destruction of the Temple where those sacrifices were offered. The Mishnah counts the disasters associated with that destruction and then ends, unexpectedly, with a festival.

Throughout these sources, counting remains a constant. The objects counted change攍etters, sacrifices, days, weeks, or disasters攂ut the habit itself throughout.

Seen in this light, Pinehas occupies a distinctive place in the annual cycle. It stands near the point where several systems of counting converge: the Masorah’s count of letters and verses, the Torah’s count of sacrifices and festivals, the calendar’s count of days, and the Mishnah’s count of historical disasters.

There is a lesson in that fact, though not an especially complicated one. Human beings count what they do not wish to lose. Communities do the same thing. They count their dead, their festivals, their years, and their sacred texts. Counting is one way of marking something as worthy of attention.

The rabbis who shaped the observance of the Three Weeks could not rebuild the Temple. The Masoretes who counted the letters of the Torah could not restore the world in which much of that tradition had first developed. What they could do was refuse to let things disappear without a trace.

This observation may help explain the ending of Tractate Ta’anit. After all the disasters, mourning practices, and discussion of destruction, the Mishnah turns to young women dancing in the vineyards. The editors knew perfectly well that the Temple had been destroyed. Yet they chose not to give destruction the final word.

The weeks between the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av ask us to remember losses that span centuries. Yet remembrance is only part of the task. We also must notice what remains: the communities we sustain, the traditions we inherit, the texts we study, and the responsibilities we carry forward.

May we learn to count wisely, giving our attention to what is worthy of it. May we remember the past without becoming trapped within it. And may the days that now lead us toward mourning also lead us, in time, toward consolation, renewal, and peace.

May it be Your will that we be comforted from Heaven for all the disasters that have befallen us, and may we merit to hear once again voices of joy and gladness in Judah and the outskirts of Jerusalem, speedily in our days. Amen.

The publication and distribution of the 果冻传媒 Parashah Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (锄漧) and Harold Hassenfeld (锄漧).

[1] Tu B’Av (the Fifteenth of Av) is a minor Jewish holiday following the mourning period of the Three Weeks, which is associated with courtship, reconciliation, and communal joy.

Join 果冻传媒 this August for a special webinar series to help prepare for the Days of Awe. Through conversations with 果冻传媒 scholars, we will explore themes that shape the High Holiday season, including fear and resilience, prayer and liturgy, and the enduring wisdom of Jewish texts and traditions. These sessions will offer fresh perspectives, thoughtful reflection, and practical insights to help deepen your experience of the High Holidays.

Featuring:

• Dr. Mordecai Schwartz
• Rabbi Naomi Kalish
• Cantor Shoshi Levin Goldberg

Sources for Naomi Kalish’s Session

Ruth, who was a Moabite, is often described as a model convert, on account of her declaration to her mother-in-law, Naomi, 渨here you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God� (1:16). Indeed, Ruth is referenced as one of the first 渃onverts� to Judaism, after Abraham and Sarah (well, before their 渃onversion,� Abram and Sarai). It is for this reason that we in the Library of 果冻传媒 feature Ruth prominently in our current exhibition, 淵our People Shall Be My People: Conversion to Judaism through the Centuries,� even naming the exhibition after Ruth declaration to Naomi. We chose to create an exhibition about conversion to Judaism at this time because in the modern age, many people have made that choice. In an age of fluid identities, when conscious choice becomes crucial, more people than ever (and there were such converts in the past, even despite laws that forbade such transitions) have chosen to affiliate with the Jewish path. But what do Ruth and what she represents have to do with Shavuot?

Shavuot攂iblically a holiday marking the first harvest攃ame to be associated with the revelation of the law at Mt. Sinai. Indeed, it is described in our prayers as 渢he time of the giving of our Torah.� At Sinai, the people of Israel stood at the foot of the mountain, ready to accept the Law given to Moses as instruction for Israel for all generations. What kind of transition did the people undergo at Sinai? In what ways were the people different after that revelation than they were before?

In the view of the Talmudic rabbis, the people of Israel converted at Sinai. Since, for the rabbis, to be a Jew is to be a person of the Torah, before the revelation the children of Israel were not 淛ews� (the term is anachronistic here). They only became 淛ews� when, at Sinai, they did what converts to Judaism must do: they immersed (the Talmud imagines this), the men were circumcised (the Torah reports this explicitly), and they accepted the 測oke of the commandments,� that is, the Torah. Indeed, as the Talmud, in tractate Yebamot, makes clear (and there is a fine 16^th century volume showing this in the Library exhibition), the children of Israel serve, for the rabbis, as the models for later conversions. The rituals a convert must undertake are precisely those executed by the people at Sinai.

Now, it is true that Jewish tradition also identified others as models for conversion. The model offered by Abraham (and, we would say, Sarah) is well known, and as we can see in the names of converts written on ketubbot (Jewish marriage contracts) in the exhibition, all converts are ultimately the sons or daughters of Abraham. And, of course, Ruth was also seen as a model for conversion. But the association of Ruth and Shavuot subtly makes another point: that there is no conversion without standing at Sinai. Because Shavuot is about the revelation at Sinai, it is also, inescapably, about conversion. It is this of which the reading of Ruth also reminds us.

There is a well-known rabbinic teaching claiming that all Jews, of all generations, stood at Sinai. Hence, we are all converts. The term the rabbis adopted for 渃onvert� was the biblical word �ger潝渞esident alien� or 渟tranger.� The Torah commands that we not oppress the ger, because we too were gerim in the land of Egypt. Whether converts or strangers, we have been both, and thanks to what we have learned from our experiences, we are obligated to welcome and protect the strangers and newcomers among us, for we are they. On this Shavuot, when we all stand again at Sinai, let us rededicate ourselves to this value, for ours is a world where it is often neglected.

The publication and distribution of the 果冻传媒 Parashah Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (锄漧) and Harold Hassenfeld (锄漧).

淭he tablets were God work, and the writing was God writing, incised upon the tablets� (). Do not read, 渋ncised,� (harut), rather [read] 渇reedom� (herut)攆or no person is truly free except the one who labors in Torah. ()

[Passover] is the time of our freedom (zeman herutenu). (Passover Liturgy)

Freedom in biblical and rabbinic Judaism is a highly complex idea. Consider the mishnah above. At first glance one might think the law, the Ten Commandments carved on the two tablets, would be limiting, constraining human freedom. Counterintuitively, the Sages argue that true freedom only comes from an engagement with Torah! How might 渓aboring in Torah� and living a life according to the demands of the Torah induce freedom?

I am reminded of the midrash where God offers the Torah to the nations of the world before offering the Torah to the Israelites. Each of these nations rejects the 済ift� of the Torah because it is too constraining (). While the Rabbis in this mishnah speak of Torah as an experience of freedom, they at other times also speak of 渢he yoke of heaven� or 渢he yoke of the mitzvot� when referring to living a life observing the Torah commandments. A beast walking under the burden of its yoke is not the imagery Rousseau or Hobbes might employ to describe their notions of a life lived in freedom!

Perhaps more problematic is the complexity present in the Bible description of the liberty granted to the Israelites with their redemption from the slavery of Egypt. God commands Moses to go to the Israelites and introduce them to the God of their ancestors with the words, 淚 am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage� (). And yet God redeems the Israelites from the 渉ouse of bondage� and from Pharaoh only to substitute another master: 淔or it is to Me that the Israelites are servants: they are My servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt� (). Acknowledging at once the irony of this situation as well as its religious meaningfulness, the Rabbis of the Midrash depict God reassuring the Israelites, 淵ou are My servants and not servants to servants!� (Mekhilta Masekhet Bahodesh, 5).

Put simply: What are these often-conflicting notions telling us about biblical and rabbinic conceptions of freedom and its relationship to a life of Torah?

How are we to experience zeman herutenu, the season of our freedom?

Modern western or American notions of freedom challenge some of these biblical and rabbinic definitions of freedom. Isaiah Berlin, in one of his more influential essays, 淭wo Concepts of Liberty,� made an interesting distinction between two types of freedom攏egative and positive. He defined 渘egative freedom� as the freedom from constraints and coercion. 淧ositive freedom� constituted the freedom to realize one destiny and best interests. Ultimately, Berlin thought positive freedom was susceptible to political abuse and might be a source of oppression for some. He argued that the safest form of freedom was 渘egative� freedom攖he absence of constraints and interference. For many of us, this iteration of freedom has become our ultimate moral value.

However, the rhythm of this season in the Jewish calendar provides an alternative understanding to the value and meaning of zeman herutenu and helps resolve some of the tensions and ambivalence toward freedom in our sources.

With the second night of Passover we begin the count-up to Shavuot, unique among all the festivals in the Torah. Each festival in the Torah has a specific date, in a specific month in the Jewish calendar. Only Shavuot is not anchored in our calendar, and yet we know we celebrate it on the same date every year攁lways on the fiftieth day after the second day of Passover. Indeed, the Torah mandates that we engage in this counting every year from the second night of Passover to the offering of the grain on the holiday of Shavuot.

The rabbis of the medieval period were the first to articulate that this counting is not exclusively about the offering of the new grain that was brought while the Temple still stood. We count from Passover to Shavuot because these two holidays are conceptually tied to one another. Passover is the holiday of our liberation and freedom. Shavuot, according to the Rabbis, is the holiday of the receiving of the Torah攖he holiday where we enter our covenantal relationship with God.

Freedom (Passover) without Shavuot (Torah) is incomplete; and Shavuot (Torah) would be impossible without Passover攖he holiday that gave us the freedom to enter into this relationship with God. A life of Torah is not a life of freedom. Freedom is not an absolute value for the Rabbis, or for the Bible. Freedom is utilitarian. The freedom of Pesah gives us the opportunity to enter into relationship with God.

Like every human relationship, a relationship with God limits our freedom. Lovers, friends, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons攅very human relationship that we freely enter into and continue to be engaged with limits our choices and inevitably comes with responsibilities. And yet we choose to voluntarily enter these relationships. Ultimately, we believe that a life lived in relationship, deeply connected and responsible to someone is more meaningful than a life lived where we may possess the unconstrained freedom to act.

Counting up to Shavuot reminds us that a life lived in relationship with others and with God, with all the attendant responsibilities that flow from these relationships, is more meaningful than a life lived free of constraints. Each day with our counting we are asked to transform our freedom into a covenantal relationship with God that will allow us to create lives rich in responsibility, and thus, meaning.

This commentary was originally published in 2018.

The publication and distribution of the 果冻传媒 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (锄漧) Hassenfeld.

When I read Parashat Miketz I feel the same movement from darkness to light. Joseph is brought from the pit (Gen. 37:24) and from prison (Gen. 41:14) into Pharaoh court, where he interprets dreams and saves a nation from famine. Later, when his brothers fear that he will punish them, he answers, �Hatahat elohim ani?擜m I in the place of God?� (Gen. 50:19). Joseph knows his role is to preserve, not to possess. He is a guardian of life, not its owner. Pollak was too攁 guardian of light and of memory.

Pollak had been the owner of the Prato Haggadah for many years. Before his deportation he made clear that he wished the manuscript to pass to the Prato family, close friends of his from Rome who had fled to Egypt before the war because of their anti-fascist politics. After the war his surviving relatives fulfilled that wish and transferred the book to them, now in Israel. Decades later, the Prato family donated the Haggadah to The Library of 果冻传媒 so that it could be studied and displayed in public攁 fulfillment of Pollak own belief that light and learning belong in the open.

Scholars have noticed that this fourteenth-century Spanish manuscript is unusual. It contains the entire narrative of the Magid section of the Haggadah, but it omits the table rituals: there is no kiddush, no blessing over matzah or maror, no birkat hamazon. As former 果冻传媒 Librarian Menahem Schmelzer pointed out, it was probably not made for a single family seder at home. It was meant for public reading攑erhaps in a synagogue or communal hall � a book built for many eyes. Its purpose was to be seen. That origin makes its modern life in a public collection feel like a return to form.

The Talmud moves this idea about being a guardian of light into practice. In Shabbat 21b the sages teach the law of 岣nukkah: �ner ish u-veito攖he light of a person and their household.� One light per household is enough to fulfill the commandment. But we are told to add more if we can攐ne for each person, or an increasing number each night. Holiness is measured not by luxury but by inclusion. Every home must shine. And the light should be visible. The Gemara says to place it at the door or in the window so passers-by will see it. That practice is called pirsumei nisa攑roclaiming the miracle. I keep that commandment literally. I set my menorah outside by the door so the neighborhood can see it burn. Every flame is a statement: light belongs in the open.

That is the same principle behind a public collection. A book locked away in private hands may be safe, but it is silent. Placed in a library or a museum, it can shine. Pollak spent his life bringing ancient objects into view so that others could learn from them. The Prato Haggadah presence at the Grolier Club is an act of pirsumei nisa: a public retelling of how Jewish life and art endured against the odds.

Later, in Shabbat 122a, the Talmud uses the line �ner le-e岣d ner leme檃h攁 light for one is a light for a hundred.� It appears in a discussion about benefiting from a lamp lit by a non-Jew on Shabbat. If the lamp is already burning, one person use does not diminish another. The phrase is legal, not poetic攁 compressed, well-made sentence in the rabbinic style. But it holds a larger truth. Light is not reduced by sharing. So it is with knowledge, art, and memory. When we open the Haggadah to many, we multiply its reach. A light for one is a light for a hundred.

That sentence gains force when set against what Pollak and his world faced. Nazism sought to erase culture: burning books, looting libraries, and staging the infamous exhibit of 渄egenerate art.� To preserve a Jewish manuscript in that time was not only scholarly act but an act of defiance.

The rabbis of Bereshit Rabbah 2:4 say that when God created light on the first day (Genesis 1:3�4), it was a radiance so pure that 渁 person could see from one end of the world to the other.� Predicting how human beings would abuse that gift, God hid it away for the righteous in the future. The Prato Haggadah belongs to that kind of light攁 radiance kept safe through centuries of exile, sale, and war. Some treasures must be concealed to be saved. But eventually they must surface. A light hidden forever is a light lost. Jewish study and Jewish libraries exist to bring these ideas out when the time is right.

Bereshit Rabbah 3:6 adds one more principle: 淓verything the Holy One created in His world He created for His glory.� If that is true, then every act of sharing a book or a work of art is a small restoration of divine purpose. We honor creation when we allow its light to be seen. Pollak believed that, and so do I. A public collection is a form of praise.

A light for one, a light for a hundred. That is the message of Miketz and of 岣nukkah, of the Prato Haggadah and of Pollak life. Hidden light is meant to be brought back into the world. Our task is to guard it, share it, and keep it burning where all can see.

More information about the 果冻传媒 Library exhibit, 淛ewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The 果冻传媒 Library� including a virtual tour can be found at jtsa.edu/library-exhibits/

In the Zohar, sitting in the sukkah is likened to sitting in the 渟hadow� or 渟hade� 渙f faith潝tzila di-meheminuta. Faith is usually imagined as a state of being that is personal, even one that is inherently internal; we usually experience and talk about faith as something that exists within us. But according to the Zohar, by sitting in the sukkah, we surround ourselves with faith. In presenting the sukkah as 渢he shadow of faith,� the Zohar is playing on an aspect of the ritual that appears already in the Talmud (Sukkah 11b). The Talmud makes a connection between contemporary sukkot and the booths in which the Israelites resided while wandering the desert, which Rabbi Eliezer claims were not physical structures but divine 渃louds of glory.�  When cast in this light, the sukkah becomes a place of faith precisely because of its impermanence: stepping out of our comfort zone, putting ourselves in a liminal space like a temporary booth, prompts us to be faithful, as we reflect more on our reliance on God protection.

The Zohar and the ensuing Jewish mystical tradition continue to transform the sukkah into a place of faith through the ritual of ushpizin, Aramaic for 済uests.� On every evening of the holiday, a different figure from the Jewish past is ritually invited to join those sitting in the sukkah. Originally, this meant the forefathers. But over time, Jews have added additional guests, including women and figures from more recent memory.

The Zohar argues for the importance of bringing in these heavenly guests by pointing to the repetition of the commandment to sit in the sukkah in Leviticus 23:42, 溩懼分甲≈恢甲浿怪甲� 转值旨砖职讈讘讜旨 砖执讈讘职注址转 讬指诪执讬诐 讻讎旨诇志讛指讗侄讝职专指讞 讘职旨讬执砖职讉专指讗值诇 讬值砖职讈讘讜旨 讘址旨住只旨讻止旨转�; �You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths.� Rabbi Aba explains this repetition as follows:

-讜职讗指诪址专 专执讘执旨讬 讗址讘指旨讗, 讻职旨转执讬讘 壮讘址旨住只旨讻旨讜止转 转值旨砖职讈讘讜旨 砖执讈讘职注址转 讬指诪执讬诐壮, 讜旨诇职讘指转址专 壮讬值砖职讈讘讜旨 讘址旨住只旨讻旨讜止转壮

.讘职旨拽址讚职诪执讬转指讗 转值旨砖职讈讘讜旨, 讜旨诇职讘指转址专 讬值砖职讈讘讜旨

.讗侄诇指旨讗, 拽址讚职诪指讗指讛 诇职讗讜旨砖职讈驻执旨讬讝值讬; 转执旨谞职讬指讬谞指讗, 诇执讘职谞值讬 注指诇职诪指讗

R. Abba said, 淚t states, 榊ou shall live in booths seven days,� and then 榮hall live in booths檾first you shall dwell and then they shall dwell. The first refers to the guests, and the second, to people of the world.�

Before one enters the sukkah, one must bring in the heavenly guests, and this ritual models for us the importance of bringing in earthly guests. What makes the sukkah a place of faith is not only that being outside makes us reflect more on our reliance on God. Rather, the Zohar teaches that when we force ourselves into these places of discomfort, into liminal spaces that are neither fully inside nor fully outside, we can actually encounter the divine攕o long as we invite others to join us. Thus, it is by creating community that the sukkah becomes a site of holiness.

But what is holy about being somewhat outside, and somewhat inside? Why do we got into a hut in order to learn this lesson? Can檛 we just invite the heavenly攁nd earthly攇uests into our dining room? These questions feel especially acute here in New York City, when going into the sukkah often means being closer to the streets and to the alleys, places we may not normally find ourselves攑laces that we may associate with the unhoused, or with people who are otherwise on the margins of our society.

By forcing us into a liminal space, the sukkah thus bring us to a place of empathy. We cannot have a truly holy community without also thinking of those who live with impermanence year-round. Going out into the sukkah, dwelling both in and on impermanence, should be an opportunity for us to think about those in the liminal places of our society, who regularly deal with the issue of what the roof over their heads will look like.

After the intensity and spiritual highs of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, it is enticing to withdraw during the fall and winter. Yet Sukkot comes to remind us that our community work is far from over.

The publication and distribution of the 果冻传媒 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (锄漧) and Harold Hassenfeld (锄漧).