28 Sep MTC Highlights: Sukkot
Sophie Felberg - Office Manager
Sukkot
This Shabbat coincides with the beginning of Sukkot, a special Chag where we leave our house and go outside and sit in a hut, a sukkah. A place we dwell and by doing so, we are fulfilling a mitzvah with our WHOLE body! There are only 3 mitzvot in the Torah which one does with their whole body, sukkah, mikveh and living in Eretz Yisrael.
During the week of Sukkot we leave our own personal and very physical world and step into the spiritual world where we meet with the ushpizin. We have these spiritual guests who come and visit us each night, even if we are physically sitting alone. Why do we welcome guests into our temporary home?
We can learn a truly beautiful lesson from doing such a small chessed: the mitzvah of Chasnachat Orchim , welcoming guests.
Hashem asks us to move from our warm, comfortable and convenient home to a place which may be a little cold, at times damp and sometimes even squashed. But as a Jew, we are taught that we must always share our dwellings with others.
How amazing to think that even when we are told to be outside our house, it’s so important to still invite people in. Things might not be 100% how we want them to be or how we expect them to be, but that doesn’t mean things can’t be better! Sometimes it may be a little bit hard to do but we should always be pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone in order to stretch our mitzvot just a little further in order to grow a little more. We have no idea of the incredible cosmic ramifications of any of the mitzvot we do!
A powerful lesson we can take from Sukkot is to leave the material things behind for one week and experience a drop of discomfort for a short period of time. When stepping out of your secured four walled house, don’t ever think you are alone because as a Jew, we are never alone. We are one nation and one heart, and we have a minhag of the ushpizin!
So when you are decorating the walls of your sukkah, laying the table, setting up the coffee corner and mattresses for sleeping, just remember the tradition of the ushpizin and add to someone else’s chag by reaching out and inviting them in.
Wishing you all a chag sameach!
Student Reflection
Ayala Benscher - HAFTR, NY - Rockaway Park, NY
This past (almost) month at MTC has been a truly amazing experience!! MTC is so different from anything I have ever experienced, in the best way possible.
To start off, the group of girls here are the most genuine and kind people that I’ve ever met, and I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to live with these girls for the next year!
These past few weeks, we have been going to our group of kids in Beit Elazraki and starting to form connections with them. I am so grateful for everything that I have been fortunate enough to be blessed with throughout my life, and I am hopeful that I can have a positive impact on my girls and give them the love that I was always given.
This past Sunday night was Yom Kippur, and we all went our separate ways, having our own meaningful fasts. After returning to Netanya, we had a few days of super fun activities, in honor of Sukkot. On Tuesday we had the opportunity to do some team bonding activities in a local Netanya park. Wednesday was kicked off with a super fun sukkah building activity which was planned by the madrichot. Later on in the afternoon, we had a blast in the ocean with tubing and surfing, followed by a super fun movie night.
I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to be in MTC this year and to grow in so many ways. I’m super excited for what’s to come!
