M.Rav Michael Humphrey II

Adapted from the Sukkot Message given 9-26-26 Rabbi Michael II Noach, Cheshvan, and the World G-d Is Building There is an interesting feeling that settles over the biblical calendar when Tishrei comes to an end. For weeks, Israel has moved from one appointed time to another. The shofar has sounded, Yom Kippur has confronted us with sin, judgment, repentance, and atonement. Additionally, Sukkot has commanded us to rejoice before G-d, and finally Simchat Torah brings us again to the beginning...

Carrying the Presence of G-d Into the Ordinary For seven days during Sukkot, as often as we can we intentionally leave the permanence of our homes and dwell beneath branches. We eat there, pray there, rejoice there, welcome others there, and look upward through a roof that was never intended to make us feel completely secure. The sukkah is deliberately fragile. Its walls cannot offer the security of a house, and its covering cannot fully separate us from the world outside. That is part of its...

“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation…’” — Isaiah 28:16 There are certain biblical images that are so familiar that we can easily overlook the depth of what they were intended to communicate. We speak of Yeshua as the “cornerstone.” We sing about the cornerstone. We read the language in the prophets and the writings of the apostles. Yet the biblical idea behind the...