A prayer for Sukkot

Master of the World, I go out of the house into the sukkah. Thin walls, a covering through which one sees the sky, a wind that comes in. Precisely here, in a place not protected like the house, I want to feel protected in Your shade.

Let me learn from the sukkah that my security is not in concrete, not in the bank account and not in the plans I built. All these matter, but they are not what truly holds me up.

And if the past year shook things I thought were stable, work, health, plans, let me sit in the sukkah and know that even within what is unstable one can rejoice.

Let me rejoice in this festival. After the Days of Awe, after the seriousness and the requests, give me a simple joy: to sit with my family, to eat, to sing, to talk without hurrying.

Let me rejoice also in the simplicity of the sukkah: without worrying that it is not perfect, that the decorations are simple, that the wind moves the sheets.

And let our sukkah be open. Let guests come to it, including those who have no one to sit with. Let me see every guest as an honor and not a bother.

And at the end of the festival, when I return to the built house, let me take this simplicity with me, and the knowledge that I live under Your sky.

And let the joy of the festival stay with me even when winter comes, as a memory of days when I sat under the sukkah covering and lacked nothing.