No More Schizophrenia...(adapted from Rabbi A. Moss)
Tonight, as the sun sets, Jews across the globe will enter their sukkahs and begin to celebrate the joyous festival of sukkot. This holiday is, in fact, the closure and climax of the High Holiday season.
What strength can we glean from this holiday and how can it help us start the year on the right foot?
Perhaps the following thought might be helpful:
Over the High Holidays we all made resolutions to become better people for the new year. But have we really changed? Whether we have promised to curb our temper, become more generous, keep Shabbat more often or quit a bad habit, it is much easier to say than to do. Often a sincere resolution is forgotten as quickly as it was made.
The reason for this is compartmentalization. Our personalities are divided. One part of us truly wants to improve and grow, while other parts of us are lazy and complacent. My mind tells me one thing but my heart feels otherwise. My soul has good intentions but my body comes in the way.
The solution: enter a Sukkah. When we enter a Sukkah, we enter with our entire being - our body and our soul, our heart and our mind. It is one of the only mitzvas that we do with our whole person.
The Sukkah experience is one of wholesomeness. And only when we bring our whole self into a holy space, our resolve from Yom Kippur can be translated into reality.
If you do not have a sukkah of your own, our sukkah at Chabda is open to you. Enter its transformative power and joyously experience the sukkah
Chag Same’ach,
Rabbi Raleigh Resnick
