Dear friends,
Of all the things Jewish tradition could ask us to do in a sukkah, the most important is that we fill it with guests.
Sukkot is the most unapologetically visible of our holidays. We don’t build our shelters in the living room, but in the yard, the driveway, the fire escape. The neighbors should know it’s there! And then we welcome ushpizin, guests both living and legendary. Each night, tradition invites Abraham, Sarah, and all our beautifully complex ancestors to pull up a chair alongside whoever else wanders in.
This is the whole point: a shelter isn't finished until someone else joins you inside it.
And that’s the core of what makes a Jewish community, isn’t it? Sukkot arrives at the harvest, the moment of abundance, and, precisely then, when we might be tempted to store up and settle in, we're told to move outside, open the walls, and share the table. It's z'man simchateinu! The season of our joy! We can’t do it alone.
The organizations we're privileged to partner with know this deeply. The ones that flourish are rarely the ones with the sturdiest walls; they're the ones with the widest doorways—communities that treat every newcomer as a guest of honor, and every gathering as a chance to make the table longer. Much of our work at Tiny Windows comes down to helping organizations make their welcome as visible as a sukkah in the front yard.
So this issue is built around that shared idea of shelter and joy: what it means to gather people in, to celebrate together in seasons of both abundance and uncertainty, and to build spaces whose whole purpose is the people inside them. You'll find essays, art, and conversations from voices across our community, each one a guest we're delighted to host in these pages.
Consider this issue our sukkah, and yourselves our ushpizin. The table is set, the roof lets in the starlight, and there is always, always room for one more chair.
Chag sameach. May this season of joy find you in good company.
With love and gratitude,
Miriam & Angel.