Put a Stake in the Ground  and Vote

Put a Stake in the Ground and Vote
Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal, Sukkot 5785

Do you know what is the first mitzvah you are supposed to do after Yom Kippur? It has nothing to do with Zabars. The first thing you are supposed to do after you break your fast is to start building your sukkah. 
We are literally supposed to pound that first nail into the wooden boards of the sukkah, to begin preparing for the next holiday through the physical act of building.

Yom Kippur and Sukkot are, in many ways, opposites.
On Yom Kippur we fast.
On Sukkot we express our joy through feasting in the sukkah.
On Yom Kippur, we spend all our time inside the walls of the synagogue.
On Sukkot, we live outside in the sukkah, surrounded by things that could only loosely be called walls.
Yom Kippur is cerebral, using our minds and hearts to pray and repent.
Sukkot is physical, using our whole bodies to embrace the natural world.

But even though they are such different holidays, Yom Kippur and Sukkot are deeply connected.
One week ago, in sanctuaries around the world, the Jewish people stood together and confessed our sins.
We thought about the things we have done privately and publicly, against God and against our fellow human beings, and we committed to being better and building a better world.

It is exhilarating to come out of Yom Kippur and think, yes! I am going to be the best version of myself!
All my faults, everything I’ve done wrong has been wiped away and everything is awesome.

And yet, it doesn’t take long for most of us to say an unkind word,
think an unkind thought,
or walk past someone in need of our help.
I won’t even mention that my kids started bickering on their way out of synagogue Saturday night.

And that’s ok.

Judaism doesn’t ask or expect us to be perfect and maybe, when creating the calendar, God knew we would need a little help.
Sukkot comes along to help us live up to the commitments that we made on Yom Kippur.
You want to live in a better world, Sukkot asks?
Do something about it.
Put a literal stake in the ground.
Start building.
Not in a few days, or a few weeks, or when you have time, but right now.
This very minute.
As my friend Rabbi Nicole Guzik teaches, “Moments after Yom Kippur ends, the biggest choice resides in our hands. Talk the talk or walk the walk?”

So what does this sukkah look like, that we start building right away and how does it help us walk the walk?
At its essence, the sukkah is flimsy. It cannot have permanent walls, and the roof must be open to the elementents, covered in branches.
The rabbis discuss what happens if rain, wind, snow, wild animals, get in the sukkah and negatively affect your holiday. The elements can get inside the sukkah because the barriers are not really barriers at all.
As we sit inside, we are reminded of how vulnerable we are. We are exposed to the elements and at God’s mercy to protect us.

And if we do it right, we remember that any security we think we have can be gone in an instant, that the walls of our home may not be enough to protect us, and that no matter how secure we feel, things can change.
We saw the most horrifying example of this on October 7th, but we can see examples as we walk the streets of New York, or when we get an unwelcome diagnosis, or in our relationships, or in our professional lives.
And even when we are feeling secure, we remember that there are people who feel this uncertainty every day, in our city, in our country, in Israel, in the larger world.
And that we could be them, or they could be us, but for an accident of fate.
We sit with our vulnerability, day in and day out for seven days, and try to embrace this lesson.

And what do we do with that newfound sense of vulnerability?
We commit ourselves to building a world we want to see, a world that protects the vulnerable and ensures that the sukkah is truly temporary for all.
And the sukkah reminds us that we don’t just commit ourselves with words, but with our deeds.

This Sukkot, we are a little over two weeks away from an election, and this presents us with an opportunity to use our deeds and put our values into action in the voting booth.
It has never been more important to ask ourselves, what kind of world do we want to live in?
How can we create a world that not only protects us, but everyone who is in need of protection, everyone who feels vulnerable, alone, and overlooked?

Voting is one of the ways that we get to that world.
Each of us has individual power to build up our communities, but the people who represent us and our ideals are an essential part of the equation, up and down the ballot.
I hope that every eligible person in our Central community, in New York and around the country, is planning to vote and to vote in every race on your ballot. I implore you to change your mind if you are planning to sit this election out.
Too much is at stake, especially as we are all feeling vulnerable in different ways.
You and I may disagree about how best to respond to the world around us, but the beauty of voting is that we each get the opportunity to put a stake in the ground for the things we care about, ideally with our Jewish values as our guide.

And if you aren’t sure if voting is truly a Jewish act, let me share this story.
A student comes to his teacher, the Chazon Ish, an important early 20th century rabbinic leader. He asks how should pay his poll tax and vote if he doesn’t have enough money.
The Chazon Ish replies that the student should sell his tefillin, an essential religious object, to get the money, since tefillin can always be borrowed but the right to vote is yours alone to exercise.
Do not squander it.
It is one of the most important religious acts you can do, because it allows you to express your vision of what our country can be. It is a vital first step on the road to building a better world.

Sukkot is a reminder that the power to build the world we want to see is in our hands, but not only in our hands. Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin teaches, “Most days of our lives we find a measure of security in our walls and our bricks and our boundaries. "Good fences make good neighbors." And that security -- as God learned in the desert -- is essential to our well-being. And yet, there are times when our ordinary world meets extraordinary challenges, when our boundaries are penetrated and our fences fall. What then? What will comfort us in the presence of dangers that walls cannot repel: the dread of illness and loss, the pain of shame and uncertainty, the shadow of hopelessness or despair, the fear of failure, the struggles with aging? Sukkot reminds us that the ultimate security is found not within the walls of our home but in the presence of God and one another.”

God and one another.

We cannot do it alone, but we cannot leave it to our prayers in heaven to make it happen either.
If Yom Kippur is about our relationship with God, then Sukkot is how that relationship shows up in the world.
So let’s go out and build the world we need, on November 5th and beyond.