For me, there is incredible power in saying—and even just thinking—these words in the sukkah. To sit in the rain or the cold or the blazing sun and the heat, to sit with bugs (those mosquitos love me!) and the damp, to sit sometimes in discomfort—and to say that God’s chesed is everlasting. It is a profound statement, and I think it is also meant to be a profound directive.
We know that there are people in the world who live in discomfort—physical, mental, spiritual—each and every day. We in Los Angeles cannot drive a block without seeing someone for whom, most likely, a temporary sukkah would be an upgrade in living conditions. We know there are those in our community who feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, feel like our spaces are not made for them because of how they look, or who they love, or even how they dress or what they drive. There are those who live daily in pain, in poverty, in fear. It is one thing to say—even to believe—that God’s chesed extends to them; but how much more powerful is it to know that we have the power—and the responsibility—to be the bringers of God’s chesed through our own actions? In a different Psalm (89), we read olam chesed yibaneh, the world is built on chesed, or, perhaps, eternity is built on chesed.
What does our world look like when we are those builders? Here’s one possibility, as sung by our own Cantor Emma Lutz.
—Rabbi Sari Laufer
