Sukkot (Sat. 30th September /15th Tishrei)
Don’t Drill Holes In the Boat
Your Weekly Mission - by Rabbi Laibl Wolf  
Notes:
• The world is made up of disparate elements of mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and spiritual. Mineral is subdivided into the 118 (at last count) elements of the Periodic table.  There are an estimated 400,000 specials of plants on earth. And up to 30 million specials of animals inhabit the planet. We humans are approaching 8 billion in population.
• Yet there is a commonality: each dimension possesses a spiritual core that allows it to exist. Every blade of grass possesses its ‘soul’. Everything is related. Spirituality is a flow – with all elements of the Divine animating flow arising from the same source.
• On Sukkot, we take the four specials of plant (the date palm branch, the Etrog citron, the myrtle, the willow, and hold them together, touching, in the palm of our hands, and demonstrate that all elements of existence come together as one – meaning, ultimately we are all part of a complete and total Oneness – fully inter-related.
• For seven days (eight outside of Israel) we live in a Sukkah (a precarious hut), under the sky, watching the twinkling of the stars in the gaps between the leaves and branches that make for a deliberately flimsy roof. This return to elemental living allows us to experience existentially our connectedness to all aspects of the world and life, and to recognize that ultimately, we are all part of a whole.
• If we are all in one boat then drilling a hole in one compartment cannot be protected by an appeal to ‘my special rights’ on the boat. We are all in it together. The world is one boat, and when we harm our part of the world, physically or spiritually, we endanger all inhabitants of the boat, viz planet earth and the world at large.
• This Sukkot practice oneness, sensitivity to others, and to the environment, i.e. to G-d.