Sukkot 2026: Yom Kippur reminds us life is short - Sukkot asks what we do with it - opinion
Yom Kippur asks God for life. Sukkot asks what we will do with it and whether we will make our time count.
During the Yom Kippur prayer book, a familiar line suddenly stopped being familiar. The phrase "Man is founded in dust and ends in dust" appeared, and the commentary by the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks caught his attention. Sacks noted the brevity of human life compared to the history of the universe, emphasizing that even a long life is still just a microsecond.
He argued that the greatest decision we make is how we use our time, as almost nothing else we possess can be replaced. Time is the one currency we all spend, and Judaism is preoccupied with time, sanctifying days and counting them. Yom Kippur asks for life, while Sukkot asks what we do with it. The sukkah, a temporary structure, reminds us that our houses, possessions, and even our lives are temporary.
However, the festival of Sukkot is joyous, suggesting that knowing something is fleeting can make it more precious. The author, a rabbi and physician, argues that the purpose of our brief stay on earth is to leave the world a little better than we found it, by being kind, healing wounds, teaching, comforting, and making a difference. This is the challenge of Sukkot: make sure the life we have prayed for is worth saving.
Written by urgent.news from Jerusalem Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
