Kol Tikvah

October 14, 2025 ()

Reflection on Sukkot: Confronting the Temporary

Reflection on Sukkot: Confronting the Temporary

HUC Education Intern Mollie Leibowitz, 2025

 I stopped going to anti-ICE protests. Not because people were returned to their families, or because the National Guard left, or because my politics changed. I stopped going during the third week of the National Guard’s occupation of downtown Los Angeles because I had other responsibilities to return to. 

This seemed to happen across Los Angeles. Though the National Guard did not start to withdraw its troops until mid-July, driving downtown in late June you would have no idea that the federal buildings had just been a warzone; the highway exits were reopened and the graffiti was scrubbed from the walls. Yet even with the National Guard gone from our city, ICE still freely patrols the streets, the threats of kidnapping and deportation imminent for Latinx and other immigrant communities.

During Sukkot, we confront the impermanence of life, building temporary structures to tear down a week later. The first time Sukkot is mentioned in our text is in Genesis 33:17, “Jacob journeyed to Sukkot and built a house for himself; and for his cattle, he made sukkot; hence he called the name of the place, Sukkot.” Tzvi Elimelekh Shapira of Dinov (1783-1841) comments on this verse, “And this is [the meaning of], ‘he made’ – that he made them in his thought like naught and nothing, similar to sukkot which do not have permanence. ‘Hence he called the name of the place,’ of the whole world, ‘Sukkot’ (as it has no permanence).” 

Everything is temporary. Our bodies and minds, responsibilities and passions, communities and needs, are constantly in flux. Yet, they never feel brief; they are exactly and unwaveringly what we feel in the moment, and what a permanent moment it is. When we encounter the time-bound face-to-face, like a lover destined to move away at the end of the summer, we surrender to the fleeting. We consent to the temporary.

For this reason, Sukkot is also known as Z’man Simchatienu, the time of our joy, where we step into a passing space of delight. Shapira writes, “That is to say that through the joy in Gd, [Jacob] meditates that all possessions in the world are similar to sukkot, which are ‘here for a night, etc.’” All we can do is enjoy what we have when we have it, especially when we have already retrieved the storage bin, ready to be filled and packed away again.

But what do we do when grief, or even joy, turn from the temporary to the permanent? What would happen if we left our Sukkot standing for an extra week? In our contemporary world, where battles we thought would be temporary seemingly become permanent, how do we resist disappearing and packing ourselves away? 

I feel guilty about taking a step back from protesting. But I remind myself that guilt is only permanent so long as I dwell in it. Going back to protests, getting back in the car to patrol for ICE, is the course of the world: cyclical. In some ways, everyday is Sukkot, everyday is temporary. In other ways, the faith in the future arrival of Sukkot 5787, is permanent. This Sukkot, I’m thinking about the power of returning. Though we pray for an end to the ICE raids and families living in fear, we also pray for the continued cycle of showing up. May we create cycles that turn temporary safety into permanent justice. 

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Sukkot begins on the evening of Monday, October 6 and concludes on Monday, October 13. Join Kol Tikvah for our Sukkot Community Celebration on Friday, October 10. More details and RSVP here

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For more information on Sukkot, go to:

https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/sukkot

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/sukkot-101/

https://urj.org/jewish-holidays/sukkot


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Websites for updates on the state of Jewish affairs:

RAC (Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement)
https://rac.org/

ADL (Anti-Defamation League) 
https://www.adl.org/

Jewish Federation of Los Angeles
https://jewishla.org

Campus Impact Network
https://www.jewishla.org/program/cin/

Community Security Initiative
https://www.jewishla.org/program/community-security-initiative/

Hillel International
https://www.hillel.org/

Standwithus
https://www.standwithus.com/

AIPAC
https://www.aipac.org/

J Street
https://jstreet.org/

Images of the Hostages
https://www.kidnappedfromisrael.com/