Cleveland, Ohio
On a glorious fall day, AJC Cleveland held its 6th Annual Interfaith Clergy Gathering at Temple Emanu El in Orange Village. It was an opportunity to reconnect, share a meal, and engage in meaningful conversation. We came together in the Sukkah where Rabbi Matt Cohen beautifully spoke about the meaning of the holiday and its traditions.
Over lunch, Rabbi Cohen provided further context for our conversation, taught us, and then posed the first question to spark discussion. While we each approached the topic from varying faith traditions, we celebrated our shared values, recognized our differences, and deepened our connections. The conversation was serious yet punctuated with much laughter and joy!
The afternoon concluded with a beautiful and timely prayer offered by Bishop Laura Barbins of the Northeastern Ohio Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America:
Holy One—
the One who shelters, who gathers, who remembers, who renews—
we give you thanks for this season of Sukkot,
for the reminder that joy and fragility live side by side,
that every harvest comes by grace,
and that every dwelling, no matter how temporary,
can become a place of welcome.
As we have sat together beneath the sukkah’s open roof,
we remember all who live beneath open skies tonight—
those who have no safe shelter,
those whose homes have been lost to violence,
those who grieve and long for peace.
We hold before you the memory of lives shattered two years ago,
on October 7, and the lives broken since.
May remembrance move us not toward despair,
but toward compassion,
and toward the labor of peace that shelters all your children.
Teach us again to build—
not walls that divide,
but shelters that include;
not weapons that destroy,
but tables that feed;
not vengeance that consumes,
but mercy that endures.
And as we depart this gathering,
may the joy of this festival—fragile though it may be—
root itself deeply in us,
so that we become builders of sukkot in the world:
makers of refuge,
keepers of hope,
lovers of peace.
Amen.
