This exhibit is part of a community conversation about our quickly changing and disorienting world, evidenced in the building, tearing down and blurring of the boundaries that structure our lives.

The sukkah is the temporary dwelling of the biblical Israelites, who wandered in an ever-changing wilderness of shifting desert landscapes, blinding sunlight and verdant oases. For forty years they trekked, seeking a yet unknown home, and trying to understand the rules that would define a new kind of living. All the while their promises and hopes struggled against fear and uncertainty. We recall this experience on the holiday of Sukkot when we build the fragile shelter and talk about how people respond to the challenges of new realities.

The sukkah, built anew each year to stand for only one week, can represent a constructed vision of the future- its walls defining and defying boundaries. It is as if the Jewish calendar has carved out a time and space for us to imagine and talk about the kind of world in which we want to live. The process of designing and building the sukkah walls can be a creative, thoughtful, empowering experience… especially this year.

Presented by The Museum of ImaJewnation…..Hosted by Congregation Shaare Emeth with support from
St. Louis Hillel and the JCC Helene Mirowitz Center of Jewish Community Life