We Build the Shelter
In honor of the dedication of the new home for Queens Hillel
[On Yom Kippur evening, gunfire erupted outside Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario. A police officer stationed outside the synagogue was seriously wounded while protecting a community at prayer; thank God, those gathered inside were unharmed. The violence itself lands with terrible familiarity. We pray for Constable Jeff Smith’s complete healing, for his family, and for the whole Belleville Jewish community. The day after Yom Kippur, we recommit to building and rebuilding.]
There is a beautiful Jewish custom to begin constructing the sukkah as soon as the fast has ended. We do not linger too long in the grandeur of our prayers, even prayers of repentance and hope. We take up wood, walls, branches, and tools. We build.
This year, the day after Yom Kippur I find myself representing UJA-Federation of New York at the dedication of the new Queens Hillel House: a home for Jewish students, a center for learning, friendship, service, and strength. My daughter graduated from Queens College, and some of her artwork now adorns its walls. To stand there, preparing to affix a mezuzah and dedicate a new communal home, was to witness something deeply Jewish: after the vulnerability of Yom Kippur, we build a place of belonging. I am so very grateful to the leadership of The Jewish Communal Fund and Hillel International for all their visionary work for our students.
Throughout this season, we recite Psalm 27: “For God will shelter me in God’s sukkah on a day of trouble.” It is a tender promise. We pray for protection. We pray for a world in which no one has to fear entering a synagogue, a school, a campus building, or a home.
But Sukkot teaches that shelter is not only something we request from Heaven. It is something we are called to create with our own hands.
A sukkah is deliberately fragile. Its roof lets us see the sky. Its walls do not pretend that danger does not exist. And yet we enter it, eat in it, sing in it, welcome guests into it. We declare that fragility need not become paralysis. We can answer uncertainty by building communities of care, learning, courage, and joy.
Especially for our young people, we must build. We must build Jewish spaces that are nourishing and proud; spaces that refuse hatred without becoming defined by it; spaces that stand in solidarity against hatred aimed at any community, and that speak clearly when it is aimed at ours.
May this Sukkot bring healing to those wounded, strength to those protecting others, and courage to all who build homes for holiness.
Yes, we ask God to shelter us. And then, together, we build the shelter with our own hearts and arms.
