It’s Sukkot again and another year of war

As we opened the boxes of our sukkah decorations this year, I pulled out the banner we hung last Sukkot for the hostages — the one we prayed we would never have to use again.

We had just found out about Hersh and the beautiful 6, and while we had been waiting so impossibly long for everyone (a whole year), the ache of it all was still so fresh. So raw. So all-encompassing.

That never stopped.

And now it has been a whole other year, and I know I’m not alone when I say I can bcarely think straight as I go about my days, randomly tearing up, reading the news updates about the deal, thinking that this could all be over even if we don’t really have a sense yet of the costs.

Tonight is Sukkot, and again I’m not the only one dreading this time of year, which used to be my favorite. The shell of our sukkah so far reminds me of all the sukkot that were left abandoned and empty for far too long, the stains of war scattered with the schach. And then I can’t breathe and I want to scream or cry and bury my head in my hands because how can it have been another whole year?

My phone buzzes with updates all day long, saying the same thing and I wonder, could it be that we are this close to the end?

Could it really be that they all come home almost to the day of when they were taken?

In my house, every time this comes up, we just say, “This is only God. God’s timing is intentional and divine,” and we shake our heads in disbelief, and we read the headlines, holding our breath in our bodies, that are still running with adrenaline from that first day on the 7th, and every day after till now.

Yesterday, I couldn’t go back to sleep after the 5 a.m. siren that had us running down the stairs again to shelter, my heart racing, vertigo twirling my mind in circles and cycles, desperate for pause, for closure, for resolution.

And I forced myself to get up, make another menu for another holiday that holds us by the throat and shakes us as we shake our lulavim, in desperation for answers, for healing, for help from up above.

I know we all are going into this holiday feeling the vulnerability of the sukkah; the fragility of the structure, and the way the elements of nature and time ravage us.

I feel as brittle as the poles, windswept by headlines, and trying to surrender entirely to God to shelter us under His sukkat shlomecha, sukkah of peace.