Shabbat Hol Hamoed Sukkot

There may be nothing that brings people closer together than being in a sukkah.  The openness of the structure has an almost magical way of opening us up to one another.  The Sfat Emet explained that the openness that we feel on Sukkot is a direct result of our atonement on Yom Kippur.  It is our sins that separated us from one another other (or, to put it another way, the definition of sin is that which separates us from one another).  So, after our sins have been wiped clean, our souls are naturally united.  The sukkah expresses that unity.

Every Friday evening throughout the year, as we welcome Shabbat, we thank God for “spreading the sukkah of peace over us.”  The point is that, each Shabbat, we recapture some of the same openness, the same simplicity, that we experience on Sukkot.  The barriers that separate us from each other, and from God, fall away.  Hence the sukkah is a symbol of Shabbat all year round.  May this Shabbat, when the sukkah is not only a symbol but a reality, help to set the tone for each Shabbat throughout the year to come.

• The New Shul’s Shabbat services are on Friday evenings from 6 to 7 pm, and on Saturday mornings from 9 am to 12 noon. The kiddush-lunch this Shabbat, September 29, will be at the Kanter-Wasserman sukkah.
• Childcare is available from 10 am to noon on Shabbat mornings.
• Our service for Sh’mini Atzeret, Monday October 1, will begin at 9 am, and will include Yizkor, the memorial prayer.
• Join us for hakafot and dancing on the night of Simhat Torah, Monday October 1 at 7:15 pm. Our service for the morning of Simhat Torah, Tuesday October 2, will begin at 9 am.
• On Shabbat morning, October 6, we will celebrate the bar mitzvah of Sammy Brodsky, son of Jonathan and Randi Brodsky. The kiddush-lunch will be sponsored by the Brodsky family.