By Avi Reichental, Guest Author

Avi Reichental is a globally recognized industrialist, entrepreneur, and board advisor who guides companies through technology-driven transformation at the convergence of advanced manufacturing, AI, and robotics.

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This week, we (the jewish people) build a house with an open door and a ceiling you can see through.

That’s the central command of our holiday, Sukkot. We are told to leave the solidity of our homes—the strong walls, the locked doors, the guaranteed shelter—and to move into a sukkah, a temporary hut. It’s flimsy. The walls shake in the wind. The roof is made of branches, meant to let in the rain and the starlight.

And in our modern world, which worships the concrete and the permanent, this feels like a radical, almost nonsensical act. We spend our lives building fortresses. We want a solid career path, a reliable retirement fund, a strong opinion, an unassailable identity. We seal the cracks with certainty. We build roofs of data and dogma to keep out the discomfort of not-knowing.

But the sukkah teaches us the spiritual power of the permeable. The blessing isn't in spite of the fragility, but because of it.

Look at our world right now. The ground feels unstable beneath us. The climate is shifting in terrifying ways. The political landscape is a tremor. Our social fabric feels thin. We are living, collectively, in a state of profound impermanence. We feel the wind, and we see the stars through the cracks in our plans. We are, whether we chose it or not, already in the sukkah.

The Torah’s genius is that it commands us to do consciously what life will eventually force upon us anyway. It says: Don't just endure impermanence. Invite it in. Dwell with it. Even celebrate it.

For one week, we are asked to stop pretending we have a solid roof over our heads. We are asked to sit in the truth of our condition: that all security is temporary, that every structure is contingent, that the only constant is change itself.

And here is the beautiful, philosophical twist: we decorate it.

We hang fruits and flowers from that rickety frame. We bring our beautiful tableware into this temporary space. We share meals and laughter and wine under the vulnerability of the open sky. This is the ultimate act of faith for a secular heart. It’s not faith in a deity who will save us from the storm, but faith in the moment itself. Faith in our own capacity to find joy and meaning within the uncertainty. It is the courage to be grateful for the meal, even as the wind blows.

The other instruction is to take four species—a palm branch, myrtle, willow, and citron—and shake them in all directions. They are all different, with different scents and tastes, representing the diversity of humanity. We bind them together. In our temporary house, we are reminded that our strength isn't in the walls, but in the community we build inside them. When the structure is fragile, the bonds between us become the real shelter.

So this Sukkot, if your life feels like it’s being lived in a temporary structure—if your plans have been weathered, if your certainties have been washed away, if you feel exposed—know that you are precisely where you need to be for a profound truth to be revealed.

You are in the sukkah.

Don't curse the flimsy walls. Instead, look up. See the stars. Feel the breeze. Share what you have with the person next to you. And understand that the most meaningful peace isn't found in a fortress, but in the brave, grateful, and open-hearted unity of togetherness.

With respect, 
Avi Reichental