During this festival of Sukkot, when we remember how our ancestors wandered in the wilderness for forty years before they were ready to create a new society, we are painfully aware that after decades of wandering in a wilderness of war, enmity and conflict, Israelis and Palestinians are still not yet ready to enter a new relationship with one another and create a just and lasting peace.
As another effort towards this goal gets underway, we hope that in the coming months there will be real progress, and that both peoples will begin to take steps towards one another, so that we may yet see two sovereign democratic states, flourishing side-by-side, guided by laws of justice, connected together by mutual ties of co-operation, and living in peace.
Bimheirah b’yameiniu – Speedily in our own day. And let us say: Amen.
Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah