Leave a Wall Open: Sukkot and Cultivating a Welcoming Community

As the leaves begin to change colors and the Jewish holiday season is well underway, Sukkahs begin to be built by Jewish communities and people across the globe.

During this time of putting up physical walls, it is also an opportune time to consider the metaphorical walls we may be putting up as individuals and as a community. 

Cultivating successful communities is a difficult task no matter the size or type. I have been a member of communities of all kinds and sizes, whether it be my synagogue and local Jewish community, college community, sleepaway camp community, high school community, gap year community, and so many others. Each has played and continues to play essential roles in my life and growth as a person. Communities are the backbone of our society, the source of strength and comfort for many during difficult times, and a center for celebration for joyous times. 

But with every community, comes people who feel left out or excluded by parts of a community or the community at large. They do not feel welcomed or included, which inevitably has very negative impacts on them including feelings or thoughts of loneliness. Even if it is not our intention we often may be putting up walls that prevent people from feeling welcome in our community and valued leading them to feel lonely. 

Loneliness is a widespread issue in the United States. An article by Mark Elias from last spring demonstrated some alarming statistics. According to surveys, around half of Americans report feeling lonely to some extent, with recent studies indicating that around 22% of adults often or always feel lonely or socially isolated. These staggering numbers show that over one in every five Americans is negatively affected by loneliness.  

The numbers specifically focused on young adults and millennials are even more sobering. Generation Z, which is those aged 18-22 is the loneliest generation, with 79% reporting feelings of loneliness according to a study by Cigna. Additionally, Millennials, or those ages 23-37, also report high levels of loneliness, with 71% saying they feel lonely at times in a survey by YouGov.

Rob Wilkinson/Alamy

Some have described the loneliness problem in the United States as an epidemic, with extremely negative effects on our mental and even physical health. Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and psychology professor at Yale University, was interviewed by PBS News about the effects of loneliness. 

“Individuals who report feeling lonely are more likely to experience things like dementia, heart disease, stroke.” said Santos. “Vivek Murthy the current surgeon general estimates that reporting that you feel lonely is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day in terms of its impact on our health and our well-being”. Not only should making people feel welcome be a desirable outcome for any community, but the inverse leads to many people feeling lonely which is both antithetical to our goals and also critically harmful.

Being welcoming is most certainly a guiding principle of Judaism. We even have a commandment of Hachnasat Orchim, inviting guests. Sukkot is arguably one of the premier holidays for welcoming guests. We have the concept of the ushpizin where a different Jewish biblical figure is “invited” to partake in our sukkot meal each night and repeatedly gather under the stars with family and friends. 

As much as I’ve seen the beauty of the welcoming nature of our community, we often fall into the trap of leaving people out either by accident or on purpose. For obvious reasons, we tend to only invite people that we are friends with or at least know. This leads to a cycle of people often growing closer to those they already know and not expanding much beyond that. When people feel out of the loop and a disconnect with their peers, they can often fall through the cracks. 

I believe that there are various levels of inclusion which I have seen firsthand in my community and contribute directly to the issue at hand. The first and lowest level is those that explicitly exclude others and tell them they are unwelcome. Fortunately, I do not think that this happens often or is a widespread issue. The second level is the neutral one where people allow others to stop by their house or join them in whatever they are doing but that understanding is not explicitly conveyed. There is nothing inherently negative about this characterization but it does cause a great amount of ambiguity for those who aren’t sure who “their people” are or aren’t necessarily in tune with the desires of others. It also is a very passive way of life. The final strata of people in a community are those that are actively inviting and welcoming of others. They go out of their way to introduce themselves and invite others to join them at their house or elsewhere, including beyond those closest to them. They also work to ensure that people do not feel left out and have a place in whatever community it is. 

I strongly fear that most communities, including the ones I am a part of, consist of people who overwhelmingly fall into the second level and not my preferred third.  There is a collective need for us to have more people in the third category who are socially sensitive to the needs of others. We must avoid putting up unnecessary social fences within our communities. In Judaism, there is a concept of making a fence around the Torah. In Pirkei Avot, it states: “Be deliberate in judgment, raise many disciples, and make a protective fence around the Torah.” Many Talmudic prohibitions are derived from this principle, but I believe it also teaches us how to improve our social community as well. To put up a fence preventing anyone from being explicitly made to feel unwelcome or unsure about their value in the community, we should be actively inviting and welcoming. I am not advocating for the abolition of friend groups or even friends as a whole. Not everyone will be your friend, but almost everyone can be made to feel valued and welcome. It is not that we should be looking out for others before ourselves but that it is incumbent upon us to look out for others while also looking out for ourselves.

For many Jews the last year has been very lonely, friends switched to foes in mere days. Suddenly feeling unwelcome at places you have been going your entire life. Surveys including one conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) have shown that there has been a significant increase in the number of Jews who felt excluded on their campuses or elsewhere. Additionally, a recent Pew survey shows that roughly one in every five American Jews has been made to feel unwelcome in various settings over the last year. We often already feel lonely and ostracized enough from the outside world that we certainly do not need to be contributing to that issue within our communities. 

My explanation of the inclusion levels meshes well with an idea I heard recently from Daniel Lubetzky on Alan Alda’s Clear and Vivid podcast. Lubetzky is a businessman and philanthropist, who founded the snack company Kind and is involved in many social and advocacy efforts. He described the meaning of being kind people. “People confuse kindness with being nice, now you can be nice and be passive,” Lubetzky said. “But if you’re kind, it requires an enormous amount of strength. It requires the strength of a protagonist”. Nice would be saying yes if someone asks if they can join you, being kind is to reach out first and seek out those who may not even feel comfortable asking. A community of mostly nice people will likely survive, but a community of mostly kind people has the ability for everyone to thrive. 

In his speech on Yom Kippur afternoon, Rabbi Jared Andstanding, my Binghamton JLIC Rabbi referenced a social media post from ‘Shower Thoughts’ which deeply resonated with me. “When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small, but barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small”. Contemplating the consequences of actions from the past is easy. Taking the initiative to do something different in the present to change the future is difficult but what is ultimately needed of us. One text, call, or invite can go a long way in positively affecting someone’s self-confidence and preventing them from falling into a rut of loneliness. An invite into one’s Sukkah, home, activity or even just checking in with someone to ensure they are taken care of can go a long way in conveying to someone that they are cared for and provide them with joy on the chagim and beyond. 

Jews doing hakafot, TorahBox.net

I personally have been on the receiving end of not being invited to, or thought of for, gatherings with people I do consider to be my friends. It is a feeling which deeply hurts, and I am certainly not the only one who has experienced it. Fixing this issue does not require a large societal change or for people to invest much of their own time, but does require a shift in our attitudes. We cannot assume that people already feel welcome or that someone else will reach out to them. That in essence is the bystander effect which has been proven to have negative consequences. 

A significant aspect of Sukkot is appreciating our surroundings, but it is not only what surrounds us but who that is crucially important. We must take note of the people in our midst and ensure they don’t fall through the cracks. Rather than wait for opportunities to be welcoming and inviting of others present themselves, we should be actively seeking them out. Our Sukkahs are built with gaps, or even entire open walls which we should use as a reminder to allow others in. Sukkot is also a time of leaving the comfort of our normal abodes to dwell with less comfort for a week. In this week of forcing ourselves to be a little less comfortable, we must consider those who may feel socially uncomfortable year-round. We will not be able to make everyone comfortable but can strive to give people the space to be as comfortable as possible. Only if we invest in actively welcoming people and fostering communities that passionately invite everyone to be valued members, can we have a holiday and year that fulfills the commandment of “vesamachta bechagecha”, rejoicing in the holiday.