Pluralistic Perspectives Interreligious Hospitality Under the Sukkah
Last week, the Hebrew College Rabbinical School and the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership welcomed theology students from across the Boston area to the Hebrew College sukkah, in partnership with the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium (BTI). The annual gathering, a long-running collaboration between Hebrew College and BTI, brought together divinity, theology, and ordination students from institutions across Boston for an evening of dinner and conversation, song and reflection, Jewish ritual, and shared service.
It was fitting to gather in the sukkah for this encounter. Its walls are temporary; its roof is open to the sky. The sukkah is a place to gather, and a reminder that walls and boundaries which can feel fixed and absolute are flexible and porous, open to exchange.
Students shared a meal, sang together, and heard reflections from several members of the BTI community. Hebrew College students led songs and introduced guests to the rituals and symbols of Sukkot, including the lulav and etrog. For those less familiar with Jewish life, these rituals offered an opportunity to encounter a holiday not simply as an idea, but as an embodied practice and lived experience. Participants also assembled soup packs to help address food insecurity, coordinated in partnership with Repair the World.
Leah Weinstein, rabbinical student and one of the event’s organizers, thinks Sukkot is an ideal holiday to launch BTI’s year of interreligious engagement: “Sukkot is one of the happier Jewish holidays, and it’s the start of the year, so there’s a themes of welcoming: welcoming different parts of yourself, welcoming different people, different community members.” Interreligious events like these reflect the rabbinate Leah hopes to build, extending beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community. “I grew up in an interfaith family myself, and I want my professional work to reflect that.” Hebrew College’s affiliation with BTI enables our rabbinical students–and seminary students from a variety of institutions and faith traditions–to intentionally incorporate interreligious learning and leadership into their studies.
In this spirit, Leah and the other student organizers programmed an which offered no single formula for interreligious engagement: students encountered Jewish ritual, shared their own experiences and traditions, sat together to eat, and packed food for neighbors facing food insecurity in the Boston area. This broad approach created the conditions for people from different traditions to spend time together, learn from one another, and begin building relationships. As the evening drew to a close, the sukkah remained open to the night sky—a fitting setting for a gathering rooted in hospitality, curiosity, and the possibility of encountering one another across difference.
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