> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # I Am Because Everyone Is - URL: https://www.lifeisasacredtext.com/i-am-because-everyone-is/ - Published: 2026-09-28T15:48:45.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-28T15:48:45.000Z - Description: Sukkot, Radical Hospitality and Organizing; a Guest Post by Graie Hagans - Author: Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg This is ****Life as a Sacred Text,** 🌱 an everybody-celebrating, justice-centered voyage into ancient stories that can illuminate our own lives. It‘s always **human-authored*, and it's run on a nonprofit, so it’s 100% NAZI FREE. 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We are in the middle of the harvest holiday of Sukkot– a week of rejoicing in fragile huts that are meant to evoke the temporary shelters in which the Israelites of the Torah dwelled in the wilderness. *“You will have nothing but joy,”* (Deut. 16:15) we're told in the commandments around this holiday. It can be hard to feel celebratory right now. It can be hard to find moments of joy with so much suffering in our world, with some of the most fundamental human freedoms under increasing siege. Rejoicing might even feel selfish, or insensitive. But the mitzvah of Sukkot is not to experience the sensation of joy, to have a particular feeling. It is in the act of gathering, of rejoicing— of bringing communities together. When we connect with one another, when we come together to become something greater because we are together–that’s when, our tradition teaches, joy becomes possible. And how we get *there*, we're taught, is by bringing people together. The wonderful Graie Hagans– organizer, political educator and casual midrashist, former Chief Vision Officer at Bend the Arc and interfaith organizer with the Faith in Action, a founding member of the [Black Jewish Liberation Collective](https://www.blackjewishliberation.org/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com), and steering committee member for the [Jewish Liberation Fund](https://www.jewishliberation.fund/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) and board member of [Jews in All Hues](https://www.jewsinallhues.org/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com)*,* transmasculine Black Jewish G\*d fearing justice lover*–* has some Sukkot Torah for us below. Please read on. 🌿 🍋 ❤️ Also! I'm (RDR) teaching at the Shalom Center [****this Thursday**](https://theshalomcenter.org/events/soak?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com)! Info [****here**](https://theshalomcenter.org/events/soak?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) and more at the end of this email. **I Am Because Everyone Is** **Graie Hagans** As we enter this season, Sukkot offers us a space for reflection and connection. The practice of gathering under the fragile, three-walled sukkah reminds us that true safety doesn't come from rigid, heavy structures, but from collective care, community, and standing together in moments of uncertainty. > You are to observe the festival of Sukkot for seven days... You are to rejoice on your festival, you, your family, workers, the \[landless\] Levite, the im/migrant, the orphan and widow within your gates. (Deuteronomy 16:13-14) Sukkot calls us into radical hospitality. We invite in neighbors, strangers, and even the ancestors whose struggles laid the groundwork for our own. In times of political shifting and democratic backsliding, gathering in these liminal spaces is how we build power and practice noncooperation against authoritarianism. Inviting others into our organizing is like inviting our neighbors into our sukkah. > *When people sit in a sukkah, the Shekhinah \[the immanent divine\] – spreads Her wings over them and... ancient ones ... make their dwelling with them. And so, people should rejoice ... together with these guests \[ushpizin\]... (Zohar Emor 103b)* There is a Talmudic story of Hillel entering the sukkah during the time of the Temple and saying, > **"If I am here, everyone is here.** > **If I'm not here, no one is here."** > (Talmud Sukkah 53a) While the second half of this statement may initially appear contradictory to Hillel's usual humility towards his fellow person, the whole statement indicates a deeper sense of humility towards the divinity of creation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/00/99/0099f63a-257a-401e-b764-2ea218bf9990/content/images/2026/09/clipboard-image-1790372259-2-1-1.png) **Sukkah of the Signs* by Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello. The sukkah is a temporary dwelling and the opposite of a permanent home. Rael and San Fratello built a sukkah out of cardboard signs that they bought from unhoused individuals across the country. (**Sukkah made of signs purchased from unhoused people, erected in NYC, with the traditional greenery for a roof.)* This year I invite you to recognize the divinity in resistance - that if I am organizing against authoritarianism, then everyone is, and if I'm not then no one is. > All of the people are able to reside in one *sukkah*. > (Talmud Sukkah 27b) None of us have been in this exact moment before, but we have had practice—dwelling in temporary spaces, practicing radical hospitality, and bringing diverse voices together into shared purpose. > "Without a door to open or close, our sukkot are perpetually open to whomever may come. This is something which we have to know, accept, and embody." > Rabba Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez Feel free to invite friends, neighbors, or colleagues who are ready to get organized to join us next Wednesday. This will be an interactive training session where we will explore community organizing and how to weaken the pillars supporting authoritarian control through community power. Join us. We'll look into the deeper layers of organizing work– not just basics like power mapping and base-building, but working in a culturally appropriate way across identity and experiential difference; how to use organizing to leverage the power we build against those who hold oppressive power; how to be intentional and thoughtful about the power that we do wield (and what power is, even); coalitions, strategy, and more. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/00/99/0099f63a-257a-401e-b764-2ea218bf9990/content/images/2026/07/7-2.png)](https://www.mobilize.us/educateus/event/975508/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) Longtime organizer and political educator Graie Hagans offers a grounded, accessible introduction to moving from a participant to a leader in this time when we need more people to step up and show up. Join us. [REGISTER NOW!! ](https://www.mobilize.us/educateus/event/975508/?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/00/99/0099f63a-257a-401e-b764-2ea218bf9990/content/images/2026/09/First-Annual-Torah-Soak--1--2-1.png)](https://theshalomcenter.org/events/soak?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) [1st Annual Reb Arthur Waskow Hoshanah Rabbah Torah Soak](https://theshalomcenter.org/events/soak?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) Thursday, October 1, 2026 7:30 PM ET With Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg [Register now! ](https://theshalomcenter.org/events/soak?ref=lifeisasacredtext.com) ## # ❤️ 🌱 ❤️ ## **Who's one person in your life who needs to read this piece?** **Send it to them.** ## **Need some words about Life is a Sacred Text to make it easier?** **How about:** - *"This helps me make sense of the world when everything feels overwhelming.”* - *“This is where I go for smart, humane takes on what’s happening right now.”* - *“This blends history, justice, and being human in a way I haven’t found anywhere else.”* Reminder to **join the conversation** by hitting that still-too-tiny ****"comment"** icon at the very bottom of this email! 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