One of the most significant lessons Sukkot has taught me in recent years has been that of human vulnerability. It is a time when we subject ourselves to the temporality of our own capacities and surroundings and become immersed in the permanence of a higher power. We build fragile huts, we mark the end of the harvest period and we submit ourselves to the possibility that perhaps something beyond us is involved in the maintenance of our world. 

These same lessons are not only learned from continuing this biblical tradition but also from abnormal times and circumstances that threaten the physical worlds we have constructed. This has been made clear to me since my recent move to New Orleans, LA. In this place, the experience of material surroundings as temporary shelter is palpable. Hurricane Katrina, which struck in August of 2005, tore apart an entire city and left every citizen’s future in question. Houses were left uninhabitable, workplaces were destroyed and simple resources were nowhere to be found. When temporality conquers permanence, when every individual, family and community loses what they have built and what has sustained them, simply living out this disconnect between strength and helplessness during Sukkot is insufficient. If our world is subject to forces we do not control, then perhaps that should motivate us to take control over what we can.

When an entire city is physically obliterated, what is still within our control is our own behavior and activity, and what stays strong, though weakened from catastrophe, are the citizens who remain. Such blatant exposure of human vulnerability empowers us to rebuild, for collective power can emerge from individual wounds and frailty. Though Sukkot may reveal that we are subject to a force beyond our understanding, perhaps it can compel us to defend ourselves against that knowledge. Perhaps it can also teach us the strength of greater numbers, of unity channeled toward improving lives or simply guiding them back to where they once were.

Joining forces and fighting for improvement is not simply a product of the righteousness of those who engage in these acts; it is also an acknowledgment of the potential strength of our unity. As Sukkot teaches us, weakness will forever remain a part of our experience -- and so it should because we are not impervious to outside actors. But in times of crisis, it is our responsibility to reinforce our strength and that of those around us. Though our power in this world is limited, it certainly grows when we work together.