( The Times of Israel ) – As we wait anxiously to see whether the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas will take hold and become permanent—ending the massacres in Gaza and bringing the hostages home—we find ourselves in the midst of Sukkot, the festival of fragile dwellings [or “Feast of the Tabernacles”].
During Sukkot, we leave the comfort of our sturdy homes and step into a dirat arai—temporary huts, vulnerable to wind, rain, and uncertainty. The Sukkah reminds us that life itself is precarious, and that our humanity depends on recognizing the fragility of others as well as our own. After two years of relentless bloodshed and grief, that lesson feels painfully urgent.
Just days ago, on Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish New Year], we read two Torah stories that echo that same truth. On the first day, Hagar and Ishmael are cast away from their home and left to die in the desert. On the second, Abraham lifts the knife over his son Isaac, ready to slaughter him at God’s command.
These stories are meant to disturb us—filling us with fear, abandonment, and moral dilemma. We breathe a sigh of relief as both end in rescue: Hagar’s son is saved when she finds a well of water; Isaac is spared when a voice halts Abraham’s hand. Yet the deeper question remains: what truly saves these two children?
The text offers a startling clue. These are the only two places in the entire Bible where we hear of a “messenger of the Lord from heaven.”
Hagar, powerless as her child slips toward death, suddenly hears that voice:
“And the messenger of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said: ‘What troubles you, Hagar? … Come, lift up the boy’” (Genesis 21:17).
This voice rekindles her courage. Strengthened, she searches again and finds a well she had not seen before—saving her son.
Abraham too is interrupted by a voice from heaven:
“And the messenger of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said: ‘Abraham, Abraham!… Do not lay your hand on the boy!’” (Genesis 22:11–12).
At that moment, Abraham disobeys the divine order that brought him there, and instead chooses the voice that insists on life.
Why this extraordinary phrase—”from heaven“?
Traditional commentaries read it literally, as a heavenly angel descending to intervene. Yet, not only is that a legendary explanation, it is troubling: Why does God not act directly to save the children?
But a deeper reading sees the “voice from heaven” not as a supernatural being, but as the awakening of an inner moral voice—what today we call “conscience.” This dramatic moment marks a turning point, in which an individual experiences an internal summons, reorients their course of action, and chooses to preserve life rather than to destroy it.
And today, after so much bloodshed and devastation, that is the voice we most need to hear. It is no coincidence that we read these stories on Rosh Hashanah, as we pray for life in the year ahead. They demand of us what Hagar and Abraham each discovered: listen to the cry of conscience, and choose life. Refuse to let children starve. Refuse to kill them.
This call is not abstract. Each of us must ask: Do I keep the machinery running—the machinery that rains bombs on homes, that shatters families, that buries children under rubble? Do I stay silent while my hands finance, justify, or enable a brutal occupation? The voice from heaven demands that we stop. That we refuse to be another cog in the machinery of siege and subjugation.
Shalom Koboshvili, “Feast of the Tabernacles [Sukkot].” Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.
The voice that halted Abraham’s hand and rekindled Hagar’s courage still speaks. The question is whether we, surrounded by so much nationalism and jingoism, will hear it.
Let our sukkahs be a catalyst to transform the ceasefire into a sustainable future of freedom, dignity and equality for all who live between the River and the Sea. And let the coming holiday of Simchat Torah awaken in us the strength to choose life—Torah is an Etz Chayim, a Tree of Life—for our children, and for the children of our neighbors.
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