Sukkot: From Fear to Festivities – Rabbi Weinreb

 https://www.ou.org/holidays/rabbi_weinrebs_torah_column_sukkot

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch said it best when he wrote:

“The building of the sukkah teaches you trust in God. You know that whether men live in huts or in palaces, it is only as pilgrims that they dwell. You know that in this pilgrimage God is our protection. The sukkah is a transitory hut that one day will leave us or we will leave it. The walls may fall, the leafy covering may wither in this storm, but the sheltering love of God is everywhere. You dwell in the most fleeting and transitory dwelling as calmly and securely as if it were your house forever.”

And so this week, we undergo what scientists call a paradigm shift. We experience a different set of religious emotions, emerging from a deeply felt solemnity into a sense of calm security.

Sukkot and Living in the Age of Insecurity

https://aish.com/sukkot-and-living-in-the-age-of-insecurity 

Rashbam (Rashi’s grandson) says the sukkah was there to remind the Israelites of their past so that, at the very moment they were feeling the greatest satisfaction at living in Israel – at the time of the ingathering of the produce of the land – they should remember their lowly origins. They were once a group of refugees without a home, living in a favela or a shanty town, never knowing when they would have to move on. Sukkot, says Rashbam, is integrally connected to the warning Moses gave the Israelites at the end of his life about the danger of security and affluence:

Sukkot, on this reading, becomes a metaphor for the Jewish condition not only during the forty years in the desert but also the almost 2,000 years spent in exile and dispersion. For centuries Jews lived, not knowing whether the place in which they lived would prove to be a mere temporary dwelling. To take just one period as an example: Jews were expelled from England in 1290, and during the next two centuries from almost every country in Europe, culminating in the Spanish Expulsion in 1492, and the Portuguese in 1497. They lived in a state of permanent insecurity. Sukkot is the festival of insecurity.

President Trump’s perfect world

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/415827

Netanyahu mostly listened as Trump put forth an ambitious and optimistic 20-point program to end the fighting in Gaza.

Sounds good, as good as Neville Chamberlain’s “peace for our time,” Sept. 30, 1938, when men of goodwill didn’t see what’s coming less than a year later.

I say, good, let the optimists prevail…until reality sets in.

Some of us, those of us who do not live in Trump’s perfect world, remain far more skeptical overall.

Anyway, haven’t we already watched this movie dozens of times over the past two years? it is called Cinderella.

My guess, as a realist; Hamas will come back with counter offers.

$1 Trump coin draft is ‘real,’ US Treasurer says

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/03/business/trump-coin-treasurer-250-anniversary

It’s not clear the controversial coin design will be minted: It’s against US law to display the image of a sitting president or living former president. A president may be featured on a coin no sooner than two years following the president’s death.

“No coin issued under this subsection may bear the image of a living former or current President, or of any deceased former President during the 2-year period following the date of the death of that President,” according to the US code governing coin design.

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ADL split marks FBI shift away from targeting right-wing violence, scholars say

 https://www.axios.com/2025/10/04/trump-fbi-kash-patel-adl

The FBI's split with the Anti-Defamation League this week is the latest evidence that the Trump administration is moving away from targeting hate groups in favor of investigating what it deems left-wing violence, scholars told Axios.

Why it matters: The ADL had, since at least 1940, worked with law enforcement to combat extremism and antisemitism, which the Trump administration has maintained is still a priority.

Manchester Jews say they feel let down by UK after Yom Kippur terror attack at synagogue

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/manchester-jews-feel-let-down-by-britain-after-yom-kippur-terror-attack-at-synagogue

Hundreds of mourners gathered in wind and rain Friday for a vigil that combined grief and defiance in the remembrance of two men who were killed when a knife-wielding assailant attacked their synagogue in the English city of Manchester on Yom Kippur.

Standing behind the police cordon that still surrounds the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in the city’s Crumpsall neighborhood, the mourners said they felt forgotten by a society that has allowed antisemitism in the UK to grow unchallenged over the last two years.

Politicians and other leaders have failed to reject anti-Jewish speech or protect Jews from hate crimes, they said.

Trump's statement thwarts Israeli plans as Hamas plays for time

 https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/10/04/trumps-statement-thwarts-israeli-plans-as-hamas-plays-for-time

Decision-makers in Jerusalem believed that Hamas intended to use Trump's proposal as a starting point for negotiations, without backing down from its long-standing demands. However, Trump's congratulatory statement to Hamas for accepting the framework cemented a new reality and effectively cornered Israel.

After Hamas said it accepted President Donald Trump's ceasefire plan "provided that the conditions on the ground are resolved," Israel had planned to issue a statement declaring that Hamas' response amounted to a rejection of the proposal. The interpretation in Jerusalem was that the Hamas merely sought to use the Trump plan as a negotiation platform while refusing to compromise on its key demands: an end to the war, a complete IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and the organization's continued rule there.

But just as that statement was being prepared, Trump's message praising Hamas' response arrived. His endorsement solidified the perception that progress had been made – and left Israel with limited room to maneuver. Following several reassessments, Jerusalem released a late-night statement from the Prime Minister's Office announcing that "Israel is preparing for the immediate implementation of the first phase of President Trump's plan for the release of all hostages."

UK police say officers accidentally shot victim who died in synagogue attack

 https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-police-name-victims-manchester-synagogue-attack-2025-10-03

British police said on Friday they accidentally shot a victim who died in the attack on a synagogue in Manchester, as well as one of the survivors, as they attempted to stop an attacker who appeared to be wearing an explosive belt.

In Thursday's attack two men, Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed after a British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing people outside Manchester's Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.