The Year We Sat in Booths and Waited

Written during Sukkot (The Festival of Booths) 2025, as Israel awaited the return of its final hostages. May their homecoming be complete, and may our nation’s joy be made whole.

The past two years have tested Israel in ways few generations could imagine. Since the war began, we have lived suspended between heartbreak and holiness, between trying to control what we can and knowing that so much is beyond our reach. We look for the hand of God in every headline, every homecoming, every loss.

In the middle of uncertainty, it is our faith that grounds us. And still, we build.

All of Israel, and everyone who loves her, is currently waiting with bated breath. I think I have refreshed my newsfeed about 100 times today. There were over 250 hostages abducted on October 7th 2023. And finally, after two long years, the last Forty-eight are (please God!) being returned. Twenty of them are presumed to be alive. Fathers, brothers, sons. Our people are coming home.
And I pray to God that by the time you read this, or very soon after they may already be back in our arms.

Amidst the ceasefire talk, someone sent me a verse this week, and when I read it I gasped.

Those who had returned from captivity, sitting in booths. It was Sukkot.

In Nehemia’s time, the people had just come home from exile. The walls of Jerusalem lay in ruins, and their faith was fragile. Under Nehemia’s leadership, they began to rebuild, not only their city, but their covenant. Ezra read the Torah aloud to the people for the first time in generations. When they heard the words, they wept. Then they acted. They gathered branches, built sukkot, and sat beneath their makeshift roofs together.

For the first time since the days of Joshua, all of Israel celebrated Sukkot as one. Scripture says, “and there was very great rejoicing.” The mitzvah itself was not new. What was new was their awareness: that joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of God within it.

Every sukkah is a declaration of trust. It says: I am not in control. My walls are thin, the wind may blow (and in my parent’s case this year, the winds may blow it away!), the rain may fall, but at the end of the day, I am safe because I am sheltered by something greater. My shelter is God.

The Jews of Nehemia’s time knew what it was to lose everything. They had been exiled in Babylon, stripped of their land and language. When they returned, they did not rebuild fortresses – they built sukkot. They did not march in triumph – they sat in humility. And that is where the joy returned.

Israel knows that story well. Every home has an empty chair; every neighborhood a name whispered in prayer. From this past war, from wars of our past. Yet, like our ancestors, we keep building. We build sukkot on balconies and bases, in kibbutzim and hospitals. We hang decorations drawn by children whose fathers are still in Gaza. We eat beneath the stars because even in uncertainty, we believe.

There is something hauntingly beautiful about that verse, “those who had returned from captivity.” In Nehemia’s time, it described exiles returning to a broken homeland. Today, it describes families reunited after darkness, names once whispered in prayer now spoken with tears of relief. The words of the Bible have become the language of our lives – and what an incredible honor it is to see these ancient promises unfolding before our eyes.

And just as in Nehemia’s generation, the act of sitting in the sukkah, of dwelling in fragility and faith, will become our collective declaration. The walls may be thin, but the presence of God is thick around us.

When the people of Nehemia’s rebuilt Jerusalem, they discovered something extraordinary: holiness does not need permanence. It needs participation. They did not wait until the Temple was restored or peace secured. They obeyed. They celebrated. They built.

As Israel waits and prays for every hostage to return, we live in the tension of faith and fear. We cannot control the outcome. But we can choose how to live while we wait. We can sit beneath the sechach (the temporary roof), look up at the stars, and remember that God’s covering is still above us.

Nehemia’s story ends with joy, but not because life suddenly became easy. The people were still surrounded by enemies. The walls were still half-built. But they had learned the secret: joy is not circumstantial. It is covenantal.

So when our brothers come home, when fathers and sons return, it will be more than just a reunion. It will be Sukkot all over again – fragile walls made strong through faith, exile turned into return, grief transformed into gratitude.

And once more, across the Land, there will be very great rejoicing indeed.

And in the meantime, we are sitting in the Sukkah – with so much faith – waiting for our people to come home to Israel.

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