I think Sukkot may be one of the most beautiful expressions of Jewish indigeneity.

The holiday is rooted in Jewish belonging to the land of Israel.

Our lives here follow the agricultural rhythms of this land: our chagim arrive with its harvests, our prayers anticipate its rain, and the branches we hold in our hands belong to the landscape our ancestors knew.

Every year, wherever Jews live, we step outside and build a little piece of home.

This home. This land.

In Vayikra 23, when God commands us to celebrate Sukkot, the Torah describes the holiday as arriving:

בְּאָסְפְּכֶם אֶת־תְּבוּאַת הָאָרֶץ

"When you have gathered in the yield of the land."

It then itemizes the bounty of the land of Israel during this season.

It then names the plants we are commanded to gather: the fruit of the hadar tree, which our tradition identifies as the etrog, branches of the date palm, boughs of myrtle and willow.

Even the objects we hold in our hands bring us into contact with the landscape of our ancient homeland.

And just a few verses later, we are commanded to dwell in sukkot (temporary outdoor dwellings) so that future generations will remember that God caused the Children of Israel to dwell in sukkot when He brought them out of Egypt.

Two extraordinary dimensions of our history, held together in a single holiday.

The memory of a people who wandered in exile, finally returning to celebrate the harvest of their own land.

In Devarim 11, as Moshe prepares the Jewish people to enter Israel, he explains that the land they are about to inherit is unlike Egypt, where they irrigated their fields through their own labor.

Rather, Israel is:

אֶרֶץ הָרִים וּבְקָעֹת לִמְטַר הַשָּׁמַיִם תִּשְׁתֶּה מָּיִם

"A land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rains of heaven."

The land's dependence on rainfall becomes part of the spiritual consciousness of the people who inhabit it, and thousands of years later, Jews throughout the world still turn toward the heavens and acknowledge God's power to bring rain.

Rain for this land. Targeting the agricultural calendar of this land.

And as Sukkot draws to a close, we begin acknowledging God's power to bring rain, anticipating the rainy season upon which the agricultural life of this land depends, which begins right after the holiday.

As we speak the weather predictions for next week include rain. It hasn’t rained here in months. The clouds are full in the sky… waiting.

These prayers have been carried across continents, through centuries of exile, into Jewish communities whose local climates and seasons often looked nothing like the ones described in our Torah.

Even when we were not living here, we still lived according to its rhythms.

And perhaps one of the most moving expressions of this appears in the book of Nechemiah, when the Jews who have returned from exile gather in Jerusalem and rediscover the commandment to dwell in sukkot.

They are instructed to go into the mountains and gather olive branches, myrtle, palm branches, and other leafy trees, and they build sukkot on their rooftops, in their courtyards, and in the public squares of Jerusalem.

The text tells us:

וַתְּהִי שִׂמְחָה גְּדוֹלָה מְאֹד

"And there was exceedingly great joy."

I can imagine it:

A people returning from exile, gathering branches from the hills of their homeland, building sukkot in Jerusalem, and celebrating the very same holiday their ancestors celebrated before they were driven away.

A miracle.

And now still, thousands of years later, we are doing it again.

In our yards, and on our balconies and driveways.

In London and Teaneck and Toronto and Melbourne.

In the streets of Jerusalem.

Among the hills and valleys described in our Torah.

When we made aliyah, our family even brought our sukkah from America, carrying the structure in which we celebrated our ancient connection to this land across an ocean so that we could continue celebrating it here.

And I think about how many generations of Jews built sukkot in places far from Israel, gathering whatever branches grew around them, sitting beneath unfamiliar skies, praying according to the agricultural rhythms of a homeland they had never seen.

They carried the holiday because they carried the connection.

And now we get to live it here.

Sukkot is such a remarkable expression of Jewish belonging.

It reminds us that our history, our agriculture, our language, our prayers, and the very passage of Jewish time have remained connected to this land, even when we were physically separated from it.

The sukkah is temporary.

The Jewish belonging to the land of Israel is forever.