Sukkot 2026: Yom Kippur reminds us life is short - Sukkot asks what we do with it - opinion

There are moments in the Yom Kippur prayer book when a familiar line suddenly refuses to remain familiar.

This Yom Kippur, somewhere in the long hours of prayer, I found myself looking at the words: “Man is founded in dust and ends in dust.” I have said those words many times. This year, however, it was the commentary alongside them, by the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, that stopped me.

He writes about the extraordinary brevity of human life. Against the history of the universe, even a long life is barely a microsecond. Therefore, perhaps the greatest decision we ever make is how we use our time.

It is an obvious thought, but sometimes the obvious thoughts are the ones we most successfully avoid. Almost everything else we possess can, at least theoretically, be replaced. Lose money, and you may earn it again. Lose a possession, and you may buy another. Lose a job, and another opportunity may appear. Even damaged relationships can sometimes be repaired.

But an hour cannot be recovered. Yesterday cannot be bought back.

Time is the one currency we are all spending constantly, whether we realize it or not. Rich and poor spend it at precisely the same rate. And none of us knows the balance remaining in our account.

Perhaps that is why Judaism is so preoccupied with time. We sanctify days. We count days and weeks. We welcome Shabbat and reluctantly escort it away. The first thing in the Torah that God declares holy is not a place or an object. It is a day.

Judaism asks us not merely to pass through time, but to sanctify it. And that thought takes us directly from Yom Kippur to Sukkot. On Yom Kippur we spend an entire day pleading for life. “Remember us for life. Inscribe us in the Book of Life.”

There is a story I once heard about a man walking along a beach who saw a child struggling in the sea. The child was clearly drowning. Without hesitation, the man ran into the water, fought his way through the waves, and dragged the child safely back to shore.

'A life worth saving'

When the boy had recovered his breath, he looked at his rescuer and said, “Thank you. You saved my life.” The man replied: “Then make sure it was a life worth saving.”

I have no idea whether the incident actually happened. Perhaps it is simply a parable. But its message has stayed with me.

On Yom Kippur we asked God to save our lives. Sukkot begins only a few days later. Perhaps Sukkot is God’s answer: Now make sure your life was worth saving.

This Friday evening, Jews throughout the world will leave their solid houses and move into structures that are deliberately temporary. The sukkah is a house that makes no pretense of permanence.

We spend enormous amounts of our lives building security. We acquire homes, pensions, investments, possessions and insurance policies. None of that is wrong. Responsibility requires us to plan for the future.

But then, once a year, the Torah says: leave the house. Go outside. Sit beneath a roof through which you can see the sky. Remember that ultimately you are only passing through.

And strangely, the festival that forces us to confront impermanence is specifically described as a time of joy. Perhaps that is because knowing that something will not last does not make it less precious. It can make it more precious.

A parent holding a newborn child may not appreciate how quickly those years ahead will disappear. A grandparent does. We watch our grandchildren running around the table and know that these moments will not last forever. We sit with aging parents and gradually realize that an ordinary cup of tea together is not ordinary at all.

Impermanence can teach us gratitude. It can also teach us urgency.

Perhaps the purpose of our brief stay on this earth is actually remarkably simple: to leave the world a little better than we found it. Not necessarily to change the whole world. Very few of us will. But perhaps to change our corner of it.

To have brought more kindness than cruelty into the world. To have healed rather than hurt. To have taught someone something they did not know before. To have helped someone who needed us. To have raised children with values. To have comforted someone who was lonely. To be able to say that because I passed through this world, something, somewhere, is better than it would otherwise have been.

That seems an extraordinarily Jewish ambition.

We are not asked simply to believe. We are asked to act, give charity, visit the sick, comfort mourners, teach our children, welcome strangers, and pursue justice. To repair what we can.

We cannot control how much time we are given. We can control what we do with it. And perhaps this is where Yom Kippur and Sukkot, apparently such different festivals, meet.

On Yom Kippur we asked to be written and sealed in the Book of Life. Sukkot asks the harder question: What are you going to do with the life you have just prayed for?

Another argument that really does not matter? Another evening scrolling through things we will not remember tomorrow? Another year postponing the telephone call, the apology, the visit to an elderly relative, or the conversation with a child or grandchild because there will always be another opportunity?

Except that one day may not come.

There is a profound difference between filling time and using time. A full diary is not necessarily a full life.

This Friday night, when we enter the sukkah, perhaps we should look through its fragile roof at the sky and remember the message that caught my attention on Yom Kippur.

Our houses are temporary. Our possessions are temporary. We are temporary. But the consequences of what we do need not be.

The kindness we show, the children we raise, the people we help, the wounds we heal, the love we give, and the difference we make can remain long after we have returned to the dust from which we came. “Man is founded in dust and ends in dust.”

We prayed on Yom Kippur for another year of life. Now comes the challenge. Make sure it is a life worth saving.

Chag sameach.

The writer is a rabbi and physician. He writes and teaches on Jewish ethics, leadership, and resilience. His work appears on rabbidrjonathanlieberman.substack.com and youtube.com. @rabbidrjonathanlieberman