This is always my favorite time of year. Not just because the fall sweaters come out and the delicious smell of pumpkin spice fills the air, both of which I do enjoy, but because of how our Jewish calendar guides us through this special season. 

We have entered that precious liminal space between concluding the yamim noraim, the days of awe, specifically the high holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – marked by deep contemplation, reflection, vulnerability, the checking of our souls, the accounting for our deeds, and the atoning for our sins. Heavy. This year was made all the heavier by the despair of the one-year commemoration of the atrocities of October 7th in Israel. 

Yet only a few short days after this heaviness, we prepare to usher in z’man simchateinu – the season of our rejoicing, specifically the holiday of Sukkot. A time of festivity, harvest, joy, and the physical building of structures of peace. We move out of our introspective and internalized rituals and into physical and communal acts of building and celebration. 

Yet, if we’ve done Yom Kippur “right”, if we’ve really done the deep reflection and bearing of our souls and laid ourselves bare, it’s almost impossible that only a few days later we feel ready to move into joy. We may still feel the exhaustion, the trauma, the exposure of standing before God in our most vulnerable state. The whiplash of these emotions is almost overwhelming. But we must.

It is not by coincidence that Sukkot is the only time in the Torah that we as a people are commanded by God to be happy and rejoice, almost as if prescribed by a doctor who knows what we as humans will need to move healthily on into the year. Even if we don’t feel fully ready. Even if we’d rather sit in the reflection and sadness just a bit longer. We are compelled into action – there is a sukkah to build! Decorations to hang! Guests to invite! Species to smell and shake! 

As in the rest of our lives, and specifically when we feel like the work ahead is just too overwhelming, even when we don’t feel ready to emerge, it is time. So too it is with the work of safety, respect, and equity. So much is broken, so much has been laid bare. It hurts to look at it for too long and to sit in the pieces on the floor. But it is time. It is time to pick up the pieces, to dive deeper into the work of rebuilding the world as we want it to be. 

There are structures that need to be built, people that need our presence, communities that need peace. And we are compelled by God, by a higher power, by each other, to move forward deeper into the year together and in joy. 

Moadim l’simcha. Here’s to the joy of building what comes next, together. 

Rachel