We remember that the same God who protected our ancestors in the wilderness continues to watch over His people.
Every year on Sukkot, the Jewish people leave the security of our homes and enter a temporary hut.
It is an extraordinary declaration of faith.
Sukkot recalls the miraculous protection God gave the Children of Israel as they journeyed through the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. For 40 years, our ancestors traveled through a barren and dangerous desert, surrounded by the miraculous Clouds of Glory.
They survived because God protected them.
Thousands of years later, we enter the sukkah to remember that same truth: Our ultimate security does not come from the strength of our homes or the certainty of the world around us. We place our trust in the Almighty, who has watched over the Jewish people from generation to generation.
That faith has carried us through a history that defies explanation.
We survived exile, expulsions, pogroms and persecution. We survived the Holocaust. We endured waves of terrorism and intifadas. On October 7, our people suffered the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
And still, Am Yisrael Chai.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reminded the world at the United Nations this week, “The story of my people, the Jewish people, goes back over 3,000 years. We speak the same language today that we spoke then. We live in the same land in which our ancestors lived then.”
Empires that once seemed invincible have vanished. The Jewish people remain.
Today, as antisemitism surges around the world and Jews are once again threatened simply for being Jews, the message of Sukkot is more powerful than ever.
We enter the sukkah and remember the Clouds of Glory. We remember the generations before us who placed their faith in God through periods of darkness and uncertainty. And we remember that the same God who protected our ancestors in the wilderness continues to watch over His people.
Netanyahu offered Jews around the world a message of courage at the UN: “Raise your head high. Be proud. Be confident. Don’t be intimidated.”
Sukkot teaches us where that confidence ultimately comes from.
The sukkah is temporary. Our faith is eternal.
The enemies change. The dangers change. Empires rise and fall. But the Jewish people continue forward, trusting in the God who has accompanied us from Egypt, through the wilderness, through exile and back home to the Land of Israel.
This Sukkot, as we sit beneath the schach and look upward, we remember the secret of Jewish survival:
We are never alone.
The God who protected our ancestors continues to protect His people.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Chag Sukkot Sameach from United with Israel.
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