The Bible reminds us that we are created in the image of God. That also means that we are responsible for our actions. And that even murderers are in the image of God and must be treated accordingly.

Now for a quick Dvar Torah.

When the Torah describes the creation of human beings, it uses the word bara—“created.” That word is significant. It suggests that something genuinely new has entered creation. With humanity, God adds something that was not there before: the neshamah, the soul, and with it certain abilities and responsibilities that distinguish us from the rest of the animal world.

On one level, of course, we are animals. We have to eat. We have to sleep. We have instincts and physical needs. But there is something more to us.

When a lion kills a gazelle, we don’t put the lion on trial. That’s what lions do. The lion is acting according to its nature and instinct.

Human beings are different. We are expected to think about what we are doing. We can ask: Is this right? Is this wrong? Should I do this simply because I want to do it?

That is part of what it means when the Torah says that human beings were created b’tzelem Elokim—in the image of God. It doesn’t mean that God has a physical image. It means that we have moral awareness, the ability to make choices, and therefore responsibility for those choices.

And then something remarkable happens in this week’s parashah.

The first murder takes place. Cain kills his brother Abel. God punishes Cain, but Cain is not simply treated as something less than human. In fact, God places a mark upon Cain so that others will not kill him.

There is an important lesson here. Even someone who has committed a terrible crime remains a human being created in the image of God.

That doesn’t mean there are no consequences. Quite the opposite. Because human beings have moral responsibility, we can be held accountable for what we do. The Torah establishes courts, laws, witnesses, and procedures precisely because punishment must be justice—not revenge.

That distinction is extremely important.

When Adolf Eichmann was captured and brought to Israel, Israel did not simply take him out and shoot him. He was given a trial. Evidence was presented. Witnesses testified. He had a defense. And only after a legal process was he convicted and sentenced to death.

There is a tremendous difference between killing someone out of hatred or revenge and a court imposing a punishment after due process. One is vengeance; the other is an attempt to administer justice.

The Torah makes a similar point in a remarkable law. Even when someone is guilty of a capital crime and his body is hung after execution, the Torah commands that the body not be left hanging overnight. It must be taken down and buried. Why? Because, as the Torah itself connects it, human beings bear the image of God.

Think about that. This person committed a terrible crime. He was tried, convicted, and punished. But even then, the Torah says: Don’t forget that he was a human being.

That is a lesson we especially need to remember when dealing with our enemies. Recognizing the humanity of another person does not mean allowing him to murder you. It does not mean refusing to defend yourself. Sometimes force is necessary, and sometimes justice demands severe punishment.

But there is a difference between doing what is necessary and enjoying the suffering of another human being.

The Torah demands something difficult from us: fight evil when necessary, punish wrongdoing when justice requires it, protect innocent people—but never forget that every human being was created b’tzelem Elokim, in the image of God.

Even the criminal. Even the murderer. Even the enemy.

Something to think about.

The first commentary of Rashi on the Torah states that the nations of the world will accuse the Jewish people of stealing the land of Israel. He points out that God gave the land to the people of Israel. This was written over 1,000 years ago.

Now for a quick Torah.

This week’s parsha, Bereishit, begins with perhaps the most famous words in the Torah: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

And the very first Rashi on the Torah asks a fascinating question: Why does the Torah begin here?

After all, the Torah is not primarily a science book or a history book. It may teach us things about history and about the natural world, but its primary purpose is to teach us how to live—what God expects of us and what mitzvot we are supposed to observe.

So Rashi asks: Why not begin with the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people, in the Book of Exodus: “This month shall be for you the first of the months”?

Rashi gives an extraordinary answer, especially when we remember that he lived more than 900 years ago.

He explains that the Torah begins with Creation because the entire world belongs to God. God created it, and therefore God has the right to give different lands to different peoples. Rashi says that if the nations of the world accuse the Jewish people of being robbers for taking the Land of Israel, the Jewish people can answer: The entire earth belongs to God. He created it, and He gave the Land of Israel to us.

But there is something else here that I think is extremely important.

Before we can convince anybody else that this is our land, we have to believe it ourselves.

And that idea is especially powerful today.

Think about the communities around the Gaza envelope. On October 7, 2023, they suffered unimaginable horrors. People were murdered and kidnapped, homes were destroyed, and entire communities were devastated. You might have expected people to say, “Why would anybody want to live there again?”

And yet Israelis have returned, communities are rebuilding, and people want to make their homes there.

Why?

Because living there is itself a statement: You tried to drive us away, and we are still here.

David Ben-Gurion expressed a similar idea about the importance of settling Israel’s frontier regions. A border is not secured only by soldiers standing guard. It is secured by people building homes, raising families, planting fields, establishing communities, and creating a future.

Of course, we need the IDF to defend Israel. But ultimately a land becomes ours not only because we can defend it, but because we live in it, build it, and refuse to abandon it.

Perhaps that is part of the message of the very first Rashi in the Torah.

Before the Torah gives us even one mitzvah, it tells us something fundamental: God created the world, and the Jewish people have a relationship with the Land of Israel.

And before we expect the nations of the world to understand that relationship, we ourselves have to understand it.

If we believe that this is our home, then we have to live like it is our home.

Something to think about.

The Bible begins with the concept that God’s intention was to create the universe, unlike the ancient idolators who believed that the world was created by accident. Many that the rest of the Bible is a commentary of the first statement.

For a quick Torah.

We’re beginning the Torah all over again, and we begin with perhaps the most revolutionary statement in the entire Torah:

“Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz” — “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

We sometimes forget just how revolutionary that idea was.

Many ancient peoples had creation stories in which the world came about through struggles and wars among different gods. The world was almost an accident—the result of these gods fighting with one another.

The Torah begins with something completely different. The world was not an accident. God intended to create it.

That opening sentence is a statement in itself. In a sense, it is the thesis of the entire Torah. Everything that follows is commentary on that basic idea: God created the world deliberately, and therefore creation has a purpose.

People sometimes make the mistake of treating the Torah as though it were intended to be a science textbook or a history textbook. It isn’t. Certainly, the Torah can teach us things about history, and it can give us ideas that relate to our understanding of the natural world. But that is not its primary purpose.

The Torah’s purpose is to teach us how God expects human beings to live.

And that is especially appropriate now, because we have just finished the holidays of Tishrei.

On Rosh Hashanah, we look forward. We say, “This is the person I want to become in the coming year.”

On Yom Kippur, we look backward. We examine what we did wrong and promise that we’re going to try to do better.

Then comes Sukkot. Suddenly, the fasting and solemnity are gone. We’re told to eat, drink, celebrate and be happy with our families and friends. And perhaps God is saying to us, “Fine. You made all those promises on Yom Kippur when you were fasting and standing in the synagogue. Now let’s see how you behave when you’re celebrating and enjoying yourself.”

And finally we arrive at Simchat Torah. We celebrate the Torah itself—and then immediately begin it again.

Why?

Because the Torah isn’t something that we finish. It is something that we are supposed to live.

And it isn’t enough simply to study Torah for ourselves. We have an obligation to demonstrate its moral principles to the world. If God wanted the Jewish people to isolate themselves and keep the Torah entirely to themselves, He could have put us on some remote island like Fiji or Tahiti.

Instead, Jewish history has placed us right in the middle of the world.

Our task is to demonstrate that a person can live a moral life, deal honestly with other people, care about the stranger and the vulnerable, pursue justice—and still participate fully and successfully in the world.

And that brings us right back to the first words of the Torah:

“Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz.”

God created the world intentionally.

And if the world was created with a purpose, then our lives have a purpose as well.

The rest of the Torah is there to teach us what to do with it.

Today is Hoshana Raba. It is the day before Simhat Torah in Israel. We dance with the Torah and celebrate it. Our message to our enemies is that we will continue to celebrate our Jewishness despite your hatred of us.

Good morning. Today is Hoshana Rabbah, and in many ways it is one of the strangest days on the Jewish calendar. But to understand Hoshana Rabbah, we have to put it into the context of the entire month of Tishrei.

We began with Rosh Hashanah, a holiday of hope. We stand before God and say: I can do better. Whatever mistakes I made in the past year, I don’t have to repeat them. I can change.

Then comes Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur we look honestly at ourselves. We think about the year that passed—the good things we did and the things we wish we had done differently. We ask forgiveness, and we promise that we’re going to try to do better.

And then, almost immediately, comes Sukkot.

Sukkot is completely different. The Torah calls it z’man simchateinu—the time of our rejoicing. We eat, we drink, we sit with family and friends, and we celebrate.

Maybe that’s the real test.

It’s relatively easy to promise to be good when you’re standing in synagogue on Yom Kippur, fasting, wearing white, beating your chest and thinking about judgment. But what happens when Yom Kippur is over? What happens when you’re sitting around a table with your friends, eating and drinking and having a good time?

Do those promises still mean something?

That’s Sukkot. We come back into ordinary life and discover whether the person who made all those promises on Yom Kippur is still there when the pressure is off.

And then comes Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh and final day of Sukkot.

According to Jewish tradition, there is still one final stage in the process of judgment that began on Rosh Hashanah. The judgment is sealed on Yom Kippur, but Hoshana Rabbah is traditionally understood as its finalization.

Think of it like paperwork that has already been decided but is still sitting in the office waiting for the final processing. Until that last stage is completed, we’re still praying: Please, God, let the final result be a good one.

That’s why Hoshana Rabbah has this strange combination of Sukkot joy and Yom Kippur seriousness.

During the Hoshanot we circle the bimah seven times, recalling the seven circuits around the altar in the Temple. At the conclusion, we take willow branches—the aravot—and strike them on the ground, an ancient custom associated with the prophets. Our prayers ask for salvation, rain, livelihood and blessing in the year ahead.

What are we really asking for?

We’re saying: God, give us another year. Give us a year of health and livelihood. Give us rain. Give us peace in our homes. Give us the opportunity to become the people we promised You we would become.

And then something remarkable happens.

After all the seriousness of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Hoshana Rabbah, we arrive at Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

And what do Jews do?

We dance.

We take the Torah out of the Ark and dance with it. In many communities we even bring the celebration outside. There is something very Jewish about that. Torah isn’t supposed to remain locked away in an Ark. Its values are supposed to be visible in the way we live and in the way we treat other human beings.

And since October 7, those words—“We will dance again”—have taken on a special meaning.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attackers crossed into southern Israel, attacking communities and the Nova music festival, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. It happened on the day Jews were celebrating Simchat Torah in Israel.

And so “we will dance again” became more than a statement about dancing.

It became a statement about Jewish continuity.

You can hurt us. You can frighten us. You can make us mourn. But you will not make us stop being Jewish.

We will take out the Torah again.

We will sing again.

We will dance again.

Maybe that is the message at the end of this entire month. Rosh Hashanah teaches us to hope. Yom Kippur teaches us to change. Sukkot teaches us to rejoice. Hoshana Rabbah teaches us never to stop asking for a better tomorrow.

And Simchat Torah teaches us what to do when tomorrow finally comes:

Take the Torah in our arms, take its values into the world—and dance.

Something to think about.

We do not have lectures on Simhat Torah because the Torah belongs to all Jews. If we were to have speeches, then there would be some who would disagree and others would feel left out. We are united on Simhat Torah.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

There is something very strange about Simchat Torah.

Usually, when somebody finishes a masechet of Gemara or some other major work of Torah learning, we make a siyum. And what happens at a siyum? The person who finished gets up and gives a devar Torah. He explains what he learned, what it means to him, and perhaps shares some deeper insight.

But on Simchat Torah we finish the most important book we have—the Torah itself.

And where is the big devar Torah?

You would think that this would be the time for the greatest devar Torah of the entire year. But instead, what do we do?

We dance.

Why?

There are several reasons. First of all, we never really finish learning Torah. The moment we finish Vezot HaBracha, we immediately begin Bereishit. There is no real ending. Torah learning is a circle. Every time we come back to the beginning, hopefully we see something we didn’t see the year before.

But I think there is something even more important going on.

When somebody gives a devar Torah, there are always going to be people who understand it better than others. There may be somebody listening who disagrees with it—and Jews disagreeing with one another is certainly nothing new!

But even more importantly, there may be a simple Jew standing there who doesn’t understand the devar Torah at all.

On Simchat Torah, we don’t want anybody left out.

Because the Torah does not belong only to the rabbi. It doesn’t belong only to the scholar. It doesn’t belong only to the yeshiva student, the Hasid, the Modern Orthodox Jew, or any particular group.

The Torah belongs to every Jew.

I remember being at the Kotel, (the Western Wall), for Simchat Torah about twenty years ago. There was a little group of us dancing together. There was a Hasid. There were a couple of people like me, Modern Orthodox. And there was another fellow covered with tattoos.

Nobody asked anybody else how much Gemara he knew.

We were all dancing with the Torah.

That is Simchat Torah.

There is another beautiful part of the history of Simchat Torah. During the years of the Soviet Union, Simchat Torah became an occasion when Jews gathered publicly and expressed their Jewish identity, despite a regime that had tried for decades to suppress Jewish religious life. Jews who might hardly have known anything about Judaism came together to celebrate simply because they knew: This Torah is ours.

And then we do something else remarkable. We take the Torah out and dance with it publicly.

Because Torah is not supposed to remain locked away as our private possession. We have an obligation to bring its values into the world—not merely by preaching to other people, but by the way we ourselves behave.

If we want Torah to teach morality, then people should be able to see morality in us.

Perhaps that is why the greatest celebration of Torah doesn’t require a great scholar to stand up and give a complicated devar Torah.

Instead, we take the Torah in our arms.

We dance with it.

The scholar dances. The simple Jew dances. The Hasid dances. The Modern Orthodox Jew dances. The Jew with the tattoos dances.

Nobody has to pass a test before joining the circle.

Because on Simchat Torah, perhaps the most important lesson of Torah is taught without words:

The Torah belongs to all of us.

Something to think about.

In VeZot Habracha Moses blesses each tribe differently. This is to teach us that everyone has something to contribute. We are all unique, but we are united when we work together.

Okay, now for a quick Devar Torah.

In this week’s parsha, Vezot HaBracha, Moshe Rabbeinu goes to each tribe and gives it a blessing. But what’s interesting is that he doesn’t give everybody the same blessing. Each tribe receives a different blessing because Moshe understands something very important: everybody has different abilities and different potential.

Just as every Jew has something unique to contribute, every tribe has something unique to contribute. Zebulun, for instance, is associated with commerce and going out into the world. Issachar is associated with Torah learning. Each tribe has its own strengths and its own role.

In a sense, Moshe is describing almost a federal system. Each tribe maintains its own identity and brings its own abilities to the Jewish people. But no tribe can really stand completely on its own. We need one another.

And I think that’s an important lesson for us, especially as we go through this month of holidays. We look around at other Jews, and everybody is different. Some people can do things that others cannot. Some people have a tremendous Jewish education; others might not know very much. But everybody has something they can contribute.

Think about how we begin Yom Kippur. Before Kol Nidrei, we specifically declare that it is permissible to pray together with sinners. Think about that. On the holiest night of the year, we begin by acknowledging that our community includes imperfect people.

Well, that’s good, because none of us is perfect. I know I’m not perfect. If you don’t believe me, I can give you a list of people you can ask.

And you can see it right here in the synagogue. David can leyn. I cannot leyn. Other people can daven very quickly. There are certain people I would never put up at the amud because we’d be here until tomorrow! But those same people have other things they can contribute.

Everybody has something in their wheelhouse.

And Moshe recognizes that in his blessings. In fact, it goes all the way back to Yaakov. When Yaakov blesses his sons at the end of Bereishit, he also doesn’t give them identical blessings. He looks at each son individually and recognizes his particular character and potential.

There’s an interesting American connection to this. When George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States, he placed his hand on a Bible. The Constitution, by the way, does not require a president to take the oath on a Bible. That Bible was opened to Genesis 49:13 — right in the chapter where Yaakov gives his individual blessings to his sons.

Washington deliberately chose it. But the symbolism is remarkable. Yaakov had twelve sons who became twelve tribes; the new United States consisted of thirteen states. And the lesson fits beautifully: each part has its own identity, its own strengths and its own contribution, but they need one another to create something greater than any one of them could create alone.

That is Moshe Rabbeinu’s message to us as well.

When you look at another Jew, don’t concentrate only on what that person cannot do. Ask instead: What can this person contribute?

Because every tribe had something to contribute. Every Jew has something to contribute. And sometimes the person whose contribution we overlook may have exactly what the rest of us need.

Something to think about.

After the seriousness of Yom Kippur we have joyous holiday of Sukkot, which culminates with Simhat Torah. This is to teach us that we made promises on Yom Kippur and we have to keep them even when we are celebrating.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

I came across something very interesting that I think helps explain the connection between Yom Kippur and Sukkot.

On Yom Kippur, we spend the entire day looking at ourselves. We confess our mistakes. We acknowledge where we have gone wrong, and essentially we tell God: I am going to do better.

But then Yom Kippur ends. The question becomes: What happens to all those promises?

There is a Jewish tradition that although our judgment begins on Rosh Hashanah and is sealed on Yom Kippur, there is still a final stage associated with Hoshana Rabbah. In other words, repentance is not simply about what we say while fasting on Yom Kippur. What matters is what we do afterward.

And what comes immediately afterward? Sukkot.

Sukkot is completely different from Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur we fast, wear white, and spend the day in serious prayer. On Sukkot, we are commanded to rejoice. We eat, drink, sit with family and friends, and celebrate.

And then comes Simchat Torah, when our celebration becomes even more exuberant.

There is a wonderful historical example of just how surprising Jewish celebration could appear to an outsider. In 1663, the English diarist Samuel Pepys visited the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community in London on Simchat Torah. He was astonished by what he saw—the singing, dancing, and celebration. Coming from the much more restrained religious atmosphere he knew, he could hardly understand how people could behave this way in a house of worship.

But that is part of Judaism. There is a time to be serious, and there is a time to celebrate.

That brings me to something fascinating about the Israel Defense Forces. After an operation or training exercise, there is a tradition of conducting an honest debrief. The commander begins by examining his own performance: Here is what I did wrong. Here is what I could have done better.

That is important because once the commander admits his own mistakes, everyone else can do the same. Instead of spending their time blaming somebody else, people can ask: What did I do wrong? What can I learn from it? What can I do differently next time?

And the purpose is not to make everyone feel guilty. The purpose is to make the unit better.

That is also one of the great lessons of Yom Kippur.

We look honestly at ourselves and say: Where did I go wrong this past year? Whom did I hurt? What mitzvah did I neglect? Where could I have behaved differently? And most importantly: What am I going to do differently next time?

We are human beings. We are going to make mistakes. Judaism does not demand that we pretend to be perfect. It demands that we recognize our mistakes, take responsibility for them, learn from them, and try to do better.

But Judaism also tells us something else: Don’t remain trapped in your mistakes.

That is why Sukkot follows Yom Kippur.

After all that introspection, confession, and seriousness, the Torah tells us to go outside into the sukkah and rejoice. Learn from yesterday, but don’t live in yesterday. Take responsibility for what you did wrong, make the necessary changes, and then move forward with happiness.

Perhaps that is the balance these holidays are teaching us.

Yom Kippur says: Look honestly at yourself.

Sukkot says: Now take what you learned and move forward with joy.

That is how we become better people and better Jews.

Something to think about.

One of the most important lessons that I learned was that universities do not teach morality. That comes from a religious education. This is the anniversary of my father’s passing and while he did not have a high school diploma, he knew what was moral and what was not.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

Today is the first day of Chol HaMoed Sukkot, and you may notice that I’m davening from the amud, which I normally don’t do. Today happens to be my father’s yahrzeit.

It’s interesting that my father passed away on Sukkot because my father was not a particularly religious man. He grew up during the Depression and had to go to work at a young age to help support his family. Then, during World War II, he served in the South Pacific as a Navy corpsman—a medic.

But there was one thing my father always understood: you help people. If someone needed help, you helped. You didn’t need a complicated philosophical explanation. It was simply the right thing to do.

His mother, my grandmother, could not read or write. But she knew the difference between right and wrong. And sometimes I think that is something worth remembering. There are people with tremendous educations who can explain almost anything, yet somehow have difficulty understanding the simplest moral truths. And there are simple people, without advanced degrees, who understand perfectly well: this is right, this is wrong, and this is how a decent human being behaves.

It reminds me, strangely enough, of The Big Bang Theory. The show is filled with brilliant people, but perhaps the character with the clearest moral framework is Sheldon’s mother, Mary. Sheldon is extraordinarily intelligent, but he is often egocentric and unable to understand the feelings of the people around him. His mother, on the other hand, is deeply religious. She understands that there is a world beyond herself, that we have responsibilities toward other people, and that when we fail, we have to admit it.

And that brings us directly from Yom Kippur to Sukkot.

On Yom Kippur, we stood before God and admitted that we had failed. We said, in effect: God, we messed up. We said things we shouldn’t have said. We did things we shouldn’t have done. We did not always treat people the way they deserved to be treated.

That admission is essential to morality. You first have to recognize that there is such a thing as right and wrong—and then have the humility to admit when you have chosen wrong.

The Bible itself teaches us this lesson. It doesn’t hide the failures of its greatest figures. When King David sinned in the episode involving Bathsheba and Uriah, Scripture did not erase the story to protect David’s reputation. It preserved it for every generation to read. David was a great king, but he was also a human being who sinned—and when confronted by the prophet Nathan, he finally said, “I have sinned before the Lord.”

That may be one of the most important religious lessons there is. Greatness does not mean never making a mistake. Greatness means being able to recognize the mistake, admit it, and try to become better.

And perhaps that is one reason Sukkot follows Yom Kippur so quickly.

On Yom Kippur, being religious is relatively easy to recognize. We’re in synagogue. We’re fasting. We’re praying. We’re confessing our sins. Everything around us reminds us that this is a serious day.

Then comes Sukkot. We eat. We drink. We sit with family and friends. We celebrate. The Torah actually commands us to rejoice.

And maybe Sukkot is asking us a very simple question:

Yom Kippur showed us how you behave when you’re fasting and praying. Now let’s see how you behave when you’re having fun.

Can you still remember right from wrong? Can you still think about the person sitting next to you? Can you still help someone who needs help? Can you still admit when you are wrong?

My father may not have thought of himself as a religious man. But he understood something religion is supposed to teach us: when somebody needs help, you help.

Sometimes the deepest religious lessons are also the simplest.

Something to think about.

Sukkot is the holiday, not only for Jews but for the world. That is why we invite all to our sukkot. And we conclude the holiday season by dancing with the Torah not only in our synagogues but in the streets as well.

Now for a quick devar Torah.

Tonight we begin celebrating Sukkot. And when you stop and think about it, Sukkot is fascinating—not only because of what we do on the holiday, but because of when we celebrate it.

Logically, you might think Sukkot should come immediately after Pesach. After all, Pesach commemorates our leaving Egypt, and Sukkot recalls how God protected and sustained us as we traveled through the wilderness. Historically, those events follow one another.

Yet Sukkot comes in the fall, when the weather can be unpredictable. We leave our secure homes and go into a fragile sukkah, where there may be wind, rain and cold.

Why?

One answer is that Sukkot is part of a much larger progression in the Jewish calendar.

Pesach is about freedom. We leave Egypt and become a free people.

Shavuot is about law and responsibility. At Sinai, freedom is given direction. We receive the Torah and learn that being free does not mean simply doing whatever we want. A free society needs laws, responsibilities and values.

And then comes Sukkot.

Sukkot represents another stage: maturity.

There is something remarkable about the sacrifices offered on Sukkot. The Torah describes seventy bulls being offered over the course of the holiday. Jewish tradition famously connects those seventy offerings with the seventy nations of the world.

Suddenly, our concern is not only ourselves.

That idea connects beautifully with something we read just a few days earlier, on Yom Kippur: the Book of Jonah.

Jonah is sent to Nineveh, a great non-Jewish city, and he doesn’t want to go. He tries to escape his mission by boarding a ship. A terrible storm strikes, and eventually Jonah is thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish.

But notice something remarkable about the story: again and again, it is the non-Jews who respond to God.

The sailors recognize that something extraordinary is happening. They pray, they change their behavior and they develop a new reverence for God.

Then Jonah finally reaches Nineveh and delivers God’s warning. What happens?

The people of Nineveh repent.

Jonah is unhappy with the result. He knew that God was compassionate, and he did not want Nineveh spared. But God teaches Jonah a profound lesson.

At the end of the book, Jonah is upset when the plant that had provided him shade dies. God essentially says: You care about this plant—and shouldn’t I care about the people of Nineveh?

They, too, are God’s creations.

That is an extraordinary message to read on Yom Kippur. Repentance, forgiveness and God’s concern are not exclusively Jewish ideas. The people of Nineveh can repent, and God accepts their repentance.

And then, only a few days later, we celebrate Sukkot—a holiday with a remarkably universal dimension.

Our sukkah is open. We invite guests inside. And symbolically, the offerings of Sukkot encompass not merely Israel but the nations of the world.

Even today you can see an echo of this in Jerusalem during Sukkot, when Christians from around the world come to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and march through Jerusalem expressing their support for Israel and the Jewish people.

I once gave a tour to an evangelical Christian group, and the group’s leader asked me, completely seriously, “When are you building the Third Temple?”

I remember thinking that he seemed to believe in its eventual rebuilding more strongly than many Jews I knew!

But there is a deeper point here.

Judaism was never supposed to mean hiding from the world.

We were given the Torah not merely to possess it, but to live it. And by living it—through justice, honesty, compassion, holiness and the way we treat other human beings—we can bring its values into the world around us.

Perhaps that is the progression of our holidays.

Pesach: We become free.

Shavuot: We receive the law and learn how a free people should live.

Sukkot: We become mature enough to turn outward and ask what responsibility we have toward the rest of humanity.

And then we reach Simchat Torah. We take the Torah out of the ark, hold it in our arms, dance with it and celebrate it publicly.

In a sense, the Torah leaves the ark and enters the world.

That may be one of Sukkot’s most important messages. We should be secure enough in who we are that we don’t have to be afraid of the world around us. Instead, through the example we set and the lives we lead, we can have a positive influence upon it.

God didn’t give us the Torah simply to keep it to ourselves.

He gave it to us to live—and through the way we live, to bring a little more holiness into the world.

Something to think about.

For 7 days we sit and eat in a fragile hut. We are commanded to be happy there. The reason is to teach us that even though live is fragile we should rejoice in it.

Sukkot and the Fragility of Life

Now for a quick devar Torah.

Tomorrow evening we begin celebrating Sukkot. For an entire week, we leave the security of our homes and eat—and, traditionally, spend as much time as possible—in a sukkah, a structure that is deliberately fragile.

And there is something fascinating about when we celebrate Sukkot.

Chronologically, you might expect Sukkot to come shortly after Pesach. Pesach commemorates our leaving Egypt, and the sukkah reminds us of how the Jewish people lived during their journey through the wilderness on the way to the Land of Israel.

Yet Sukkot doesn’t come in the spring or summer. It comes in the fall, when the weather is becoming unpredictable. The wind blows. The temperature drops. And, as anyone who has ever built a sukkah knows, rain can suddenly change your plans.

Perhaps that is part of the lesson.

Most of our lives are spent trying to create security. We build strong houses. We save money. We buy insurance. We make plans for the future. We do everything we can to convince ourselves that tomorrow will look more or less like today.

Then we enter the sukkah.

Its walls are not particularly strong. Its roof is made of branches. We can see the sky through the schach. A strong wind or heavy rain can remind us very quickly just how temporary this little structure really is.

And perhaps the sukkah is a metaphor for life itself.

We can do everything possible to make our lives secure, and we should. But ultimately, there are limits to how much security human beings can create.

Jewish history has taught us this lesson repeatedly. There were communities where Jews believed they had finally found security and acceptance, only to discover how quickly circumstances could change. German Jewry before the Nazi era is one of the most painful examples. Germany had been a center of Jewish integration and achievement, and many Jews had every reason to believe that the lives they had built were secure.

Then everything changed.

So you might think that Sukkot should be a holiday of anxiety. If the sukkah reminds us that life is fragile, shouldn’t we spend the week worrying about what might happen tomorrow?

The Torah tells us exactly the opposite.

“V’samachta b’chagecha” — “You shall rejoice in your festival.”

Sukkot is z’man simchateinu—the time of our rejoicing.

That may be the real lesson of the sukkah.

Life is fragile. Therefore, enjoy it.

Be grateful for the people sitting around your table. Invite friends into your sukkah. Enjoy the food. Enjoy the conversation. Appreciate your family. Appreciate the roof over your head—even when that roof is made of branches.

We cannot guarantee what tomorrow will bring. But we can appreciate what God has given us today.

Perhaps real happiness does not come from convincing ourselves that everything we have will last forever. It comes from understanding that it won’t—and therefore recognizing just how precious it is while we have it.

So when we sit in the sukkah this year, surrounded by its fragile walls and looking through the schach toward the heavens, perhaps we should remember:

Life is fragile. Life is uncertain. And life is still an extraordinary gift.

Something to think about.

Chag Sameach.