Dear all,
As Ron and I assembled and decorated our Sukkah today, pieces kept falling down, vines got entangled, and we pricked ourselves with a safety pin (more than once).
Our liturgy teaches us that God spreads over us a “Sukkah of peace.”
I have to admit…. There was nothing all that peaceful about putting this together!
So why should this fragile structure be a symbol of peace in the first place?
It comes down to this…. We should never take peace for granted. We have to build it. We have to uphold it. We have to maintain it. We have to work for it. It won’t just happen on its own.
The Festival of Sukkot reminds us that in any given moment in time, we have an opportunity (and an obligation) to build structures of peace, however fragile they may be, in order to create goodness in the world.
With love and shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro