Rabbi Howard Morrison

Any American old enough remembers where he or she was when JFK was assassinated?

Any Jew old enough remembers where he or she was when Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated. I, for one, remember it well - A Saturday night on November 4, 1995. 

Any Jew old enough remembers where he or she was two years ago today on the English calendar. On Shemini Atzeret in the Diaspora which were Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah in Israel, we were just beginning to learn of the absolute brutality which was unfolding. Babies, young women and men, families, the elderly, all being slain in barbaric ways in one day. Homes, Kibbutzim, and communities were utterly destroyed. Instead of earning the world's sympathy, anti-Jewish hatred and sentiment began to flourish even before the IDF responded to the worst day in Jewish history since the Shoah. Now, exactly two years later, we continue to mourn as though the horrors took place yesterday. Homes and communities are still under disrepair. 48 hostages still languish somewhere in the hell of Gaza. With minor exception, many nations of the world seem to sympathize with Hamas and Gazans more than they do with Israel and Jews around the world.

We are supposed to celebrate in full today, the beginning of Sukkot. 

We are supposed to celebrate the bounties of nature by taking the Lulav and the Etrog.

We are supposed to celebrate the providential care of God by dwelling and eating in Sukkot.

The Torah commands us - "V'Hayita Ach Sameach - you shall be only happy."

How can we be happy and fulfill the Mitzvot of this Festival?

It seems to me that Joy can only come with sad remembrance at the same time. Consider the following:

The joy of a wedding concludes with the breaking of the glass, remembering broken moments in Jewish history and in our lives.

The joys of Yom Kippur, Shemini Atzeret, the last days of Pesach and Shavuot are co-mingled with the recitation of Yizkor.

During Sukkot, paradoxically and simultaneously, when we dwell and sit in the Sukkah, we also feel frail, vulnerable, and dependent on the forces of nature and the presence of God. 

Joy is not a simple ha! ha! ha!

This year, like last year, we will celebrate Sukkot but in a Jewish, moderate, and tempered manner which reminds us of everything October 7 and its aftermath entail.

Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Howard Morrison