Kabbalat Shabbat Kavannah | Rabbi Rebecca Weintraub | October 10, 2025

Before we turned toward Arvit, the evening service,

just to say that we had a shorter Kabbalat Shabbat

as we started because of the holiday, because of Sukkot.

And there's a debate in the rabbinic

literature around what is the sukkah itself.

What is it?

Is it the actual structure that the Israelites were walking through

when they were in the desert? Did they live in these booths?

Sometimes you see it as booth.

Someone asked my husband at work, do you have a structure?

And he said, yes, we actually do have one, but we call them Sukkot.

And the question the rabbis are asking, is it the physical structure?

Or they say,

is it these clouds of glory?

Is the idea that actually, as we're wandering through the desert,

God's presence was

always with us, whether that was a cloud in the sky,

a pillar of smoke, whether there was a fire that led us by night.

But there's a sense of actually the people.

There are many midrash theme about the people being surrounded by

these clouds, even seven clouds, potentially, that were following them

and protecting them at all times as they were walking through the desert.

And there are many different teachings and ideas,

but one idea about to quote

is that we do all of this work during the nauseam.

We do all of this hard soul searching the whole month of Elijah.

We've been on this journey together.

We then go into Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kipper.

We are working and it's not easy

to open ourselves that way spiritually, emotionally.

Forgiveness.

Whether we're ready or not.

Also, confronting who we've been this year, who we hope to be in the coming year,

and the rabbi say

when we get to Sukkot, part of the structure

is that we've done all the work, and now we just get to sit a little bit.

We get to take a deep breath.

We get to be with that presence of God.

Those underneath cover those clouds of glory.

But to really, we've done so much searching and so much work,

and we're going to continue to do the work.

And we know that work doesn't end, but that su coat is a time

when we get to take that deep breath and we get to sit and we get to be

and to be in the presence of God, to be in the presence of the people.

Our community, the people we love most.

It's a reminder.

And Shabbat is also that it's exactly what your back comes to do every single week.

For us, Shabbat says you were running on Sunday.

You were running Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday, and now you get a break.

Now you can show up.

Now you can be with the people you love the most.

You can ask the questions that you didn't have time to ask.

You can find that presence and that deep sense of connection

that we haven't found all week, right here in the gift of whether it's a day

or really, it's just that presence in which we welcome in each and every day.

And I think, particularly on this Shabbat of su quote, that we have both of this,

we have the glory of su quote, the joy that Su code is supposed to bring us.

But I think really the depth of that joy is about being together

is about being in presence and being present ourselves,

and particularly on this Shabbat, as we are anticipating.

And we stand in a place of anticipation

and we pray, we pray that this is the very beginning of what we hope

will be a time of healing and one step toward peace.

And also seeing our hostages returned,

that it's also a moment to sit in that anticipation,

to go back to the Su quote, that we were wandering in the desert,

those the fragility of this moment, but knowing that

we're not on this journey alone and that we're not on it

alone, meaning we're in it as a community, but also that that presence,

those on a covert are also here, hopefully in spirit,

and that we feel it in our to feel out this evening.

So as we turn to RV it, as we begin and really take

in Shabbat on this Xcode, on this,

the precipice of much hope in which we've been praying for, we'll turn to page

39 A and we'll ask you to rise in body or in spirit as we come together in Baku.