Sukkot Chol Ha'moed 2025

From the Depths: A Prayer for Return

On this Shabbat, during the intermediary days of Sukkot, our hearts and prayers are focused on hope.

The Hallel service, which we recite during the festival, contains the powerful words found in Psalm 118:

"Min ha'metzar karati Ya," – “From the depth of my innermost being I cry out to You,”

The verse continues: “and You, dear God, answered me and brought me relief.” This cry, this deep yearning for relief, reflects the anticipation we all share this week.

This resonates with a sincere prayer I witnessed on Yom Kippur morning. As one of our Torah readers, Ella Sackett, completed her reading, she ended with a choked-up voice: “AND BRING THEM HOME.”

Ella’s words were the sincerest prayer I’ve heard in quite a long time. Her emotional "cry out" was perhaps heard by Hashem at that very moment—a cry that reached the throne on high. I am certain it is the same fervent prayer shared by countless others, including the families of the hostages, both alive and those who have perished.

Every Friday evening during Kabbalat Shabbat since October 7, 2023, I have asked you to take the “or zarua la’tzadik,” reflected in one of our Kabbalat Shabbat Psalms, the light that shines for the righteous, and focus it on the hostages and their families. I’ve watched your faces as I’ve said these words for the past two years, and I’ve been impressed by how each of you takes this simple prayer to heart, finding meaning in that moment of collective spiritual light.

We wait with great anticipation for the release of all the remaining hostages, hopefully, just before the start of Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah. Their return, as soon as it comes, will be precisely two years to the day that the evil Hamas entered southern Israel and changed not only the lives of those in Israel but the Jewish world as a whole.

For our sisters and brothers in Israel, the return and a ceasefire will bring a moment of great simcha, joy, but also a moment of immense reflection. The nation will grapple with how to celebrate and provide comfort to those still grieving. Their task is difficult: to heal and to seek a lasting security.  They must create a promise for the next generation—that the horrors of war will not be their reality—and work to make that promise real.

Around the world, we must also ask: Will those demonstrating against Israel and against Jews finally turn their attention to bringing true relief to the people of Gaza? Will they hear the cries of the children and adults in Gaza who yearn for the end of Hamas, the entity responsible for this war, the death, and the destruction of their homes and lives? Will they choose to help rebuild lives rather than spread anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence?

We pray for an Israel, a Jewish Israel,  that can once again be a beacon to the world, and we pray that this moment will be the impetus for a genuine, lasting peace in the region.

But for this Shabbat, let us focus on the words of one of the psalms that precedes Psalm 118 and the words of the “min hametzar karati ya,” “from the depths I call out to You.” The words from Psalm 116 are ones that I reflect upon at Havdalah as well. “kos yeshuot esa,” “I raise up the cup of deliverance and call out the name: Adonai.”

I call it out with anticipation of tomorrow and the return of the hostages. As Danny Gordis writes in his blog, we hope for the moment “that thousands of soldiers will return home, that reservists will rejoin their families and that their marriages will heal, that their children will start sleeping again. 

That we can now turn our attention to what is so desperately needed to be fixed inside.

We’ll get to that, hopefully. First, let’s get them home.” 

Am Yisrael Chai!

Shabbat Shalom and Mo'adim l’Simcha—May this intermediary time of the Festival soon evoke simcha, with the return of the hostages.

From Ella’s mouth to God’s ears.

Rabbi K