October 9, 2025|י"ז תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ו The Miracle of Normalcy By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

Today is October 7th.
Two years ago, on this very day, we woke up to horror.
The sirens, the massacres, the hostages, the images that broke our hearts.
It was a day that changed Israel, and really, all of us.
And as this anniversary falls during Sukkot, I can’t help but feel that the holiday itself now carries a different kind of weight — and a new kind of meaning.

Because after October 7th, I think we all understand Sukkot differently.
It’s not just about remembering miracles.
It’s about learning how to live with fragility.
It’s about realizing that what we truly crave isn’t grandeur or spectacle — it’s sukkot mamash.
After October 7th, all we want… is normal.

Many of us are familiar with the famous debate between Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer about what we commemorate when we sit in the sukkah.

The Torah says, “Ki va-Sukkot hoshavti et Bnei Yisrael” — that God settled the Jewish people in sukkot when they left Egypt.

Rabbi Eliezer believes we commemorate the miraculous ananei ha-kavod — the clouds of glory that surrounded and protected us in the desert, shielding us from the heat and from danger. I still remember as a child going on family road trips from Toronto to Boston or New York — and maybe I’m dating myself — but I don’t think we were allowed to use the car’s air conditioning. We’d roll down the windows and hope our yarmulkes wouldn’t fly off!

But imagine walking through the desert with built-in air conditioning — with divine protection surrounding you on all sides. That’s something worth celebrating while sitting comfortably in your sukkah.

Then comes Rabbi Akiva. He disagrees. He says we don’t remember the ananei ha-kavod — we remember sukkot mamash — the actual huts the people built in the wilderness.

How do we understand this debate? I used to think about it in two ways. But after what has happened in Israel — after October 7th — I find myself drawn to a third.

The first, classic way to see it is that Rabbi Eliezer emphasizes what God did, while Rabbi Akiva emphasizes what we did. Each of the shalosh regalim celebrates a divine act: Pesach celebrates God’s redemption from Egypt; Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah; and Sukkot, according to Rabbi Eliezer, celebrates God’s protection in the desert. Rabbi Akiva, however, sees Sukkot as celebrating our faithfulness — our courage to follow God through the wilderness, “lechtech acharai bamidbar b’eretz lo zeruah” — to live in makeshift huts, moving from place to place, trusting God every step of the way. Rabbi Eliezer highlights divine miracles; Rabbi Akiva highlights human faith.

A second approach, from the Rashbam, teaches that according to Rabbi Akiva, the sukkah reminds us of our humble beginnings — of being refugees in fragile shelters, before we knew stability or safety. Later, when we would enjoy peace and prosperity in our land, the sukkah would remind us not to take that security for granted.

And that’s the reminder we feel so deeply this year. Because stability — normal life — is not guaranteed. It’s a gift.

But I think there’s one more layer here — one that speaks directly to this moment.
Rabbi Eliezer wants us to remember the overt, dazzling miracle: the clouds of glory, the visible hand of God.
Rabbi Akiva wants us to remember the quieter miracle — the ordinary one. The miracle of sukkot mamash — the miracle of building, of enduring, of living one day after another in faith.

Sukkot does not commemorate one spectacular event like the Exodus or Sinai. It commemorates forty years of survival. Of a people that refused to give up. It celebrates not the supernatural miracle, but the natural one — the miracle of perseverance, of ordinary endurance, of life continuing.

And isn’t that the ongoing story of the Jewish people?
Our survival despite every attempt to destroy us.
Our return to our land after two thousand years.
Our ability to rebuild, again and again, from ashes to life.
Sukkot celebrates not the fireworks of faith — but the quiet, steady miracle of normal Jewish life.

We see this in the story at the end of Masechet Makkot. Rabbi Akiva and his colleagues walked past the ruins of the Beit HaMikdash. The others wept; Rabbi Akiva laughed.

He saw not only the destruction but the promise — the vision of Zechariah’s prophecy: “Od yeishvu zekeinim u’zekeinos b’rchovos Yerushalayim” — old men and women will once again sit peacefully in the streets of Jerusalem.

That’s it? No thunder, no heavenly fire — just grandparents on park benches, sipping coffee.
That’s Rabbi Akiva’s vision of redemption.
Not the miraculous — the normal.
That’s sukkot mamash.

And that, I think, is what we long for now more than ever.
Not spectacle. Not grandeur.
Just life.
We want our hostages home.
We want our soldiers safe.
We want to walk through our cities without fear, to raise our families, to live our Judaism in peace.
After October 7th, we have learned to cherish normalcy as the greatest miracle of all.

When we say in Hallel, “Hodu la-Hashem ki tov, ki le-olam chasdo” — we thank God for His great miracles.
But we also cry out, “Ana Hashem hoshia na” — please, God, just save us.
This year, our tefillah is simple: Hashem, grant us sukkot mamash.
Give us the quiet miracle of everyday life — of peace, of safety, of home.

Bring our hostages home — so that their families can exhale again, so that we can breathe again, so that Am Yisrael can be whole again.
So that we can finally return to that most sacred of blessings — the gift of being normal.

And maybe that is the deepest message of Sukkot.
To find holiness not only in the spectacular, but in the ordinary.
To see the Divine not only in the clouds of glory, but in the fragile huts we build with our own hands.
To celebrate not only when heaven splits open, but when families sit together in joy, when communities thrive, when Jerusalem’s streets are once again filled with laughter and life.

May Hashem grant us that blessing soon.
And may our sukkot this year be a taste of that peace — that wholeness — that sacred, simple gift of normal life.