This Shabbat finds us in a place of tender and complex memory. We are nestled between two solemn anniversaries of the 7th of October attacks: the secular date which has just passed, and the Jewish date which arrives on Simchat Torah, this coming Tuesday. For so many, the emotional landscape is still fragile. The trauma of that day remains close to the surface. Yet, two years later, as the slow and difficult work towards peace in Israel continues, the first hints of solace may finally be emerging.
It is into this very space of fragility and yearning that our Torah reading for Shabbat Chol haMoed Sukkot [1] speaks with uncanny power. The portion is set in the aftermath of another national trauma: the sin of the Golden Calf. The covenant is broken, the people are lost, and the relationship with God hangs by a thread. It is from this place of communal despair that Moshe cries out with a plea that echoes our own: “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” It is a cry for reassurance, for a sign that healing is possible after the shattering.
What follows is a beautiful and complex choreography, a Divine dance at the cleft of a rock. God’s response is a lesson in how we might recover from trauma. A full, direct view of God's “face”, a reality in which the pain is erased, is not possible. Instead, God offers a protected encounter with goodness. “I will place you in a cleft of the rock,” God says, “and I will shield you with My hand... you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” This is a model for finding solace. We cannot unsee the horrors of the past, but we can create safe spaces from which to witness glimpses of hope: the resilience of a community, the enduring strength of our people, and the courage to believe in peace even after such an immense trauma.
This brings us to the very meaning of the sukkah this year. As Rabbi Michal Shekel points out, this dialogue between Moshe and God occurs at a moment of supreme vulnerability [2]. The firmest walls are often the ones we build to protect our hearts. Sometimes, those walls isolate us. The sukkah proposes a different kind of shelter, thin yet held by presence, porous yet capable of hosting blessing.
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, cited by Shekel, puts it beautifully, “Sukkot reminds us that ultimate security is found not within the walls of our home but in the presence of God and one another… The walls of our sukkot may make us vulnerable, but they make us available, too.” These fragile walls “help us understand that sometimes the walls we build to protect us serve instead to divide us.”
This Shabbat, let us see the sukkah as our communal cleft in the rock. It is our safe space to sit with our fragility, to honour our memories, and to be shielded as we look for signs of goodness passing by. It is where we can hold our sorrow and still allow the possibility of peace to be a balm on our aching hearts.
Mo'adim le-simcha and Shabbat Shalom.
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