God—and goodness—is bigger than all of this

Shabbat Hol HaMoed Sukkot

Exodus 33:12-34:26

Numbers 29:23-31

Ezekiel38:18-39:16

On the morning of Sept. 12, a woman came to see me for her scheduled appointment for spiritual counseling. But of course, this was no ordinary day. I was shaken, grieved and frightened, and it was not easy to set my own feelings aside to offer care to someone else.

To my good fortune, the woman who had come in that morning is a person of deep faith. She said that she ached to recite the words of the Kaddish: "Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei rabbah" ("May God's great name be magnified and sanctified"), for those words express the conviction that God is bigger than what we have lost. She was finding that, in moments of deep prayer, she did know that God was bigger than all of this -- all of the death, the evil, the horror and the fear. Listening to her, I realized that she was giving eloquent expression to what I needed to believe as well.

Somehow, weeks have passed, and we find ourselves in the middle of Sukkot. With uncanny timeliness, the Haftarah for this Shabbat tells of a shadowy despot who will come and wage war against our people. The terrible conflagration that is prophesied is the archetypal struggle of good against evil. This conflict will bring great suffering in its wake, but we are promised that God will prevail. Sound familiar?

But wait: In the midst of this apocalyptic and all-too-familiar description, the prophet tells us that God will announce the victory of the forces of good, with these words, "Hitgadilti vehitkadishti" / "Thus will I magnify and sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations. And they shall know that I am God" (Ezekiel 38:23). Using the same words that later find their way into the Kaddish, God says, as it were, "I will make it known that I am far greater than all of this."

The month of Tishri always brings us face to face with God's grandeur. The overarching message of Rosh Hashanah is that God is Sovereign -- unfathomably powerful, dwarfing the powers we think we may have. And Yom Kippur always humbles us by confronting us with our own mortality, as we stop eating, wear white garments (like shrouds), and wrack our souls to say what we must say before the gates close on our lives. Then miraculously, the shofar is sounded and we are given a new lease on life, having been reminded again that our lives are a gift. This year we scarcely need the reminder.

Suddenly, with Sukkot, we move from confrontation with our finiteness into the beauty and abundance of life. The sweet fragrance of the autumn harvest is everywhere -- in the lulav and etrog, in the fruits hung from the sukkah, in the scent of the evening air, in the warmth of holiday food.

But our sense of vulnerability is still present -- even during ordinary years -- for the sukkah itself symbolizes the fragility and impermanence of our lives. The fragile dwelling is vulnerable even to wind and rain, much less the forces of evil and hatred that beset us now. Sukkot always brings a message about what is really powerful, where security lies and what is truly in God's hands. This year, we need hardly be told that this is true. We know it, for our fear is palpable.

Yet in many ways, Sukkot brings us precisely those truths that we most need to rely on in the aftermath of our collective grief and trauma.

*Yes, we are reminded that we are mortal, finite, vulnerable to forces -- both good and evil -- more powerful than ourselves.

*But this holiday also reminds us to be grateful for the exquisite gift of life -- for the lush bounty of beauties and wonders that are all around us, even now, especially now that our world has been shaken.

*During Sukkot, our tradition asks us to open our homes to others --bringing friends and community members (and, symbolically, our ancestors, long gone) into our flimsy homes. We are to share what we have -- our share of the harvest, our small, shaky home -- with others. We are asked to practice hospitality, inviting others -- even the stranger, even when we are frightened -- into our homes and into our hearts.

*Spending the week in a dwelling whose roof must be open to the stars above, we are forced to contemplate a Power much larger than this suffering, a truth much grander than we can possibly understand right now. We are guided, this Sukkot, to lift our eyes and open our hearts to receive comfort, to take in the truth of how powerful are the forces of love, compassion and goodness in the world.

I imagine that God, like us, is shaken this Tishri, horrified at the atrocities that humans can commit. But we must look up, look around, and look within, to remind ourselves again and again that the forces of good are still much larger than what we have witnessed. And we must commit to living each day in such a way that we testify to the goodness and holiness of life. May it be so.