Shabbat Shalom from Cantorial Intern Sierra Fox

As we enter the festival of Sukkot, I find myself thinking about what it means to be out in the wilderness, in the fields. In Jeremiah 2:2, God says, “I accounted to your favor the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride – how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” Here, we see a view of wilderness that connects us to a time of purity, freshness, and possibility; so much can be sown in this empty field in which we erect our sukkahs.?

Rabbi Dalia Marx, Ph.D., reminds us that the Hebrew word for wilderness, midbar, shares a root with the word D’vir, another name for the Holy of Holies, the innermost sacred place of the Temple. Similarly, the word tziyah, which means “dry territory,” is thought to be etymologically linked to the word Tziyon, Zion. ?

Some of us may be feeling drained after these High Holidays, or just after this very hard year for our people and the world. We might feel like we are in the wilderness more than ever, out in dry, parched land, fearing our temporary dwellings may be blown away at any moment. But even, or especially, in these hard times, we can find such holiness, such community.?

May we plant sacred seeds this year in what feels like a wilderness, and while we may not need to make pilgrimage to a “Holy Temple,” may we find holiness in the possibilities in our own backyards. ?

Cantorial Intern Sierra Fox?