“When putting up a sukkah, we experience the simple joy that comes with building something we know will not last forever —just as when we build a sandcastle,” writes Rabbi Eliott Tepperman in The Guide to Jewish Practice. The festival of sukkot grounds us in the impermanence of so many things. It reminds us of […]

Talmudic specifications for the sukkah have much to teach us about embracing everyone.

On Shabbat Sukkot, Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism, spoke at Philadelphia’s Mishkan Shalom. The talk focused on how Jewish practices and rituals cultivate resilience within individuals and communities — sustaining the Jewish people through the centuries and millennia. S

About a year ago, West Philadelphia resident and Reconstructing Judaism Assistant Director of Thriving Communities/Tikkun Olam Specialist Rabbi Micah Weiss planted about 75 etrog seeds. Over the year, nearly all germinated, producing little etrog saplings.

As someone who had been a Jewish community organizer prior to rabbinical school, this was the sort of Jewish ritual I was accustomed to, linking contemporary politics to ancient practices, if not quite on this large a scale.

Sukkot’s ancient roots implore Jews to serve the greater good of all.