“Forog a világ!” — The world is spinning!

This was one of my late father’s favourite sayings. Friends and family still recall him repeating it with a mix of wonder and resignation, as if to say: life keeps moving, history keeps turning, and none of us can step off the ride.

My father, Laszlo Eliezer Hirsch, was born in 1914 and passed into the next world on Simchat Torah in 1995. He was a handsome Hungarian Jew who, as a young man before the war, rejected the Hasidic faith of his father, but after surviving the horrors of World War II, he embraced it wholeheartedly. For the rest of his life, he was a generous, practicing Jew who cherished our far-flung family and welcomed all expressions of mainstream Jewish practice.

Rediscovering My Jewish Path

In recent years, I’ve been delving more deeply into my own Jewish education. My path hasn’t been straightforward. I grew up in a religious Hungarian-Jewish household in Quebec, attended Protestant schools because Catholic ones wouldn’t accept Jewish children, and later found myself studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

More recently, I’ve joined classes and study groups in both Montreal and Jerusalem, ranging from Shiviti, a yeshiva for adult women, to lectures by scholars like Yoram Hazony and those organized by the OU in Jerusalem. What I’ve come to see is that our texts are not only about rituals; they’re filled with deep questions and ideas. They form a kind of homeland that we can carry with us wherever we go. Our holidays, too, are both emotional and educational pageants to be experienced in real time.

A Personal Holiday Diary

Just this past week, I experienced the familiar rhythms of Yom Kippur and the joyful anticipation of Sukkot here in Israel.

On Yom Kippur, Jews around the world recite the same timeless prayers, many over a thousand years old. Among them:

“If God were to keep strict account of our sins, who could stand?” — Psalm 130:3

“The LORD, the LORD, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in kindness and truth.” — Exodus 34:6

These aren’t just words. They form a sacred bond, a reminder that justice must be tempered with compassion, and that God looks not only at what we do but also at what we intend, what the Bible poetically calls “the kidneys and the heart.”

Then comes Sukkot, the holiday known as The Season of Our Joy. We sit in these fragile huts under the open sky and read Ecclesiastes in synagogue, with its haunting refrain:

“Hevel hevelim, hakol hevel” — “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

But it’s worth pausing on that word hevel. In Hebrew, it literally means breath, vapour, or mist, something that appears for a moment and then vanishes. When Kohelet repeats hevel havalim, he’s pressing the point: much of what we chase in life, whether it’s wealth, wisdom, or power, is fleeting, like breath in the air.

Jewish commentators have interpreted this in many ways:

• Rashi taught that worldly concerns are empty without God.
• Ibn Ezra reminded us that all human striving is small when measured against eternity.
• The Kabbalists added something more tender: hevel isn’t only vanity; it’s also the breath of life itself, fragile yet filled with divine meaning.

That’s why we read Kohelet both at funerals and during Sukkot: it reminds us that though our physical lives are temporary, our spiritual connections give them depth and meaning.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks expressed it beautifully: the sukkah teaches us that true strength lies not in stone temples or empires, but in human connection, humility, and the grace of God.

When I sit in a sukkah and read Kohelet, I often think of Walter Benjamin’s idea of the aura, that special presence you feel when you stand before something authentic, something that cannot be reproduced. A sukkah has that aura for me. Its fragile walls and open roof don’t promise permanence; they invite presence. They remind me that holiness is found in the here and now, in the fleeting moments we share.

Between Holidays and Generations

This year, I spent Rosh Hashanah in Zichron Yaakov, at Moed, the community my nephew Rabbi Yair Silverman founded after moving from Berkeley. Back in California, his synagogue had been a warm home for many. In Israel, he has carried that same spirit forward, creating a space where people gather to pray and learn in simple, heartfelt surroundings.

One moment that stayed with me was his son Amitai’s dvar Torah, shared on his Bar Mitzvah day. He laughed and admitted he loves to eat and could never understand why anyone would willingly choose to fast. But after studying the Mishnah on fasting, he came to see it differently: going without food makes you more aware of others’ hunger, and in that way, it teaches compassion.

Yom Kippur always deepens that sense of closeness to God. In Israel, where Jews, after two thousand years of exile, have regained sovereignty, the whole country participates. The streets empty, the air stills, and an ancient quiet descends that feels both timeless and new.

After spending twenty-five hours in the synagogue, fasting, dressed in white, wearing no leather-soled shoes, and immersed in the age-old liturgy, I always emerge feeling lighter, as though something in the world has shifted. It’s as if our reconciliation with God lingers tangibly in the air.

Now, with Sukkot arriving, fragile huts, sukkot, are rising across balconies and gardens. Delicate huts for fragile lives, reminders that what truly shelters us is not wood or canvas, but the grace of God.

I spent Simchat Torah once again with my nephew Yair and his congregation in Zichron Yaakov. During the Yizkor memorial service, we honoured the lives of those no longer with us, and by kiddush, we commemorated my father’s passing in particular. He would have been well pleased to see his daughter, grandson, great-grandchildren, and the entire Moed community celebrating together.

Where History Meets the Present

And so here I am, between Zichron Yaakov and Jerusalem, watching the world spin, just as my father used to say. From the sweep of empires to the hush of Yom Kippur prayers, from grand ideologies to fragile sukkot, I keep returning to the same simple truth:

Life is fleeting, but meaning is not.
History repeats, but so does mercy.

The world may spin faster than we can bear, but the breath of life, hevel itself, is still a gift we can hold and cherish, moment by moment.

Moadim l’simcha — may your festivals be filled with joy.

Further Reading & References

• Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Greatness of Sukkot – on the meaning of the sukkah and Kohelet. Watch here
• Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction – where he introduces the idea of “aura.”
• Psalm 130:3 – “If God were to keep strict account of sins, who could stand?”
• Exodus 34:6 – The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy revealed to Moses.