Turning Plastic Grapes into Wine — Celebrating Sukkot During a War

It always struck me as odd the expression to practice one’s religion, or to be a practicing Jew.

It may not have been coined by one of the sages, but thinking about it, it’s pretty wise. After all, it’s not the entire religion we’re practicing. It’s faith.

We talk about faith in religion all the time. That’s the level to get to, the belief that things will work out, that they’re for the best, even if you don’t understand why. Not easy. In fact, I’m the last guy to be writing about this at all.

The inner certainty that this is the right course, that things will be okay, is an emotion (or is it an attribute?) non-religious and non-Jews naturally share as well. All the time, people take leaps of faith in business and in love. Sometimes, we just have to hold on to hope.

Though faith in the religious sense is different than confidence or having a good feeling. It’s the direct belief that G-d will take care of it and do the thing for you that needs to get done.

It’s one thing then to have faith that in a few months you’ll have a better job. But with the chips on the line, in a moment of danger, of real risk, how often do we get to prove that we have trust in G-d?

If you’re an Israeli celebrating Sukkot, that’s exactly what you’re doing.

The middle of a war, with rockets flying overhead and falling, doesn’t seem like the time to sit outside your house in a hut with a bamboo roof. Not sure those plastic grapes ever saved a single life.

Then again, we’re the people of the moon, not the sun, and doing the exact opposite thing than the rest of the world has worked out for us pretty good so far.

So rather than stay inside, we build sukkahs outside with sticks and palm leaves and spend seven days in them, even during a war. Because no matter how flimsy or temporary, no matter how many rockets Hezballah fires, ultimately we believe G-d will protect us. That’s faith.

Like most things in Judaism, the sukkah and Sukkot have many symbolisms and deeper levels of spiritual meaning. For sure, one of the central messages relates to the clouds of glory, which according to the story of the Exodus, protected the Jewish people in the desert.

I’m writing this from the protection of a 14-floor brick building in New York, one that doesn’t even have a sukkah. The only thing I’m worried about flying overhead is a pigeon. So this Chag, my faith hasn’t been tested. I just have to cling to the belief that some day I’ll get to stop eating.

While I may not be able to relate to what’s happening in Israel, like every day since October 7, my heart and prayers remain directed there. After all, one of the meanings of the arba minim (four species: lulav, etrog, willow and myrtle) are four different types of Jews unified under the same roof.

We’ve all had remarkably different experiences this past year. But we’ve all felt that unity. The unity between Israel and the exile. Between religious and secular. Between soldier and civilian. Between right and left.

We’ve all been touched by the war, directly or otherwise, and many of us have experienced antisemitism. The world over, we’ve been reminded that underneath it all we’re Jews and have banded together in a powerful way.

The Chag will end in a few days. The sukkahs will be taken down and the decorations will go back in the box. The time of our joy (z’man simchateinu) will end, but the faith will continue. It has to. Like a lot of things when you’re Jewish, there is no alternative.

So we must have faith that the clouds of glory will stay stretched all over the world for just a little longer, a little farther, wherever the protests get bad, wherever those increasingly threaten the West.

The faith that the US election will work out in the best way for Israel.

The faith that the hostages will be home soon and the war will end.

The faith that whether under the same roof or not, the unity we’ve seen over the past year will continue.

Maybe not now, but as bad as it’s been, it has to get better. No people on Earth are better than Jews at turning plastic grapes into wine. We’ve certainly had enough practice.