Five days after the end of Yom Kippur, the festival of Sukkot begins. Sukkot is a weeklong holiday dedicated to bringing worship outside, literally, and it can be understood as our opportunity to face the world anew after the powerful experience of introspection and t’shuva (commitment to change) of the preceding days. One of the three pilgrimage festivals (sh'losh regalim), Sukkot is both a harvest festival and connects us to the time when recently freed Israelites built fragile lives and homes in the wilderness. A time for appreciating our blessings, Sukkot reminds us to pause and acknowledge the abundance of our tangible and symbolic harvests.
