Hygge in the Sukkah by Rabbi Sandra Kviat

I’ve got a serious case of ‘hygge’, and as usual it turns up right around Sukkot. As the leaves are turning red and golden, the temperature is fluctuating more towards the blue end of the thermometer, the need to hunker down and create some seriously ‘hyggelige’ conditions always comes to the fore. And hygge fits well with the themes of gratitude, the end of the harvest, and returning to nature and the outdoors, which is what Sukkot is all about. As well as cake of course. Sukkot literally drags us outside from our cosy homes into the great big outdoor living room. We are asked to rejoice outside, eat outside, sleep outside (generally only done in warmer and drier climates than ours), and just be outside. If you don't have a sukkah, or the space to build one, go outside anyway. Bring a thermos and a bite to eat, or your lunch, or just yourself, but find some trees and sit, or go for an extra walk, and contemplate what you are grateful for. Try and get outside every day for seven days to feel the difference between the sturdy walls of our homes and life in all its change outside. There's no better way to feel grateful for what we have.  And then don a warm jumper and come along on Sunday for tea and cake in the Sukkah, and share your blessings with the Chavurah.

And Finding Some Joy in Simchat Torah 

And then to finish off this mammoth season of festivals, next Thursday night we end on Simchat Torah, the celebration of our foundational texts and stories. It's meant to be a time of great joy and celebration, dancing and festivities, which is much harder this year, because October 7th happened on Simchat Torah last year.  And so, we will have time to remember and say kaddish, but also honour the resolve of the Nova Festival that ‘we will dance again’, by finding the space in us to be together with joy, to learn together and discuss endings and beginnings, nourishing our souls and our bodies.