Sermon: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (Sukkot)

Written by Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang — 7 October 2025

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

I never saw the award-winning 1967 film, but I do know that there is now a popular podcast with this title, where the radio host Tim Lihoreau invites a celebrity to fantasise about the 5 guests they would most like to gather around their dinner table, and what they would talk about.

Whom would I choose?  How would you choose yours, and who would they be?

Would you invite people you already know and like? Because they are entertaining, or because they are genuinely interesting to listen to?  Would you confine yourself to people with whom you honestly want to spend time, or might you be tempted to include people you would like to name-drop about afterwards?

This game is not new:  it has been part of Jewish tradition for centuries.  In addition to offering a place at our table in the sukkah to those who don’t have their own, we invite honoured guests, known by the Aramaic word ushpizin , a different one for each night of Sukkot.  Who are they?

The 7 original ushpizin were all people whose names you know well:  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David. (all men, of course!).  In Kabbalistic tradition, each supposedly enhances our Sukkah with their sort of aura, their particular noteworthy characteristic. For example:

• Abraham: hospitality of course, since he is credited with possibly having constructed the first ever Sukkah. He welcomed strangers who turned out to be divine messengers.
• Joseph: righteousness and integrity, since he was able to resist temptation
• Aaron: for his humility and his connection to holiness.

What about women?  That tradition is not quite as old, but there are definitely ushpizot too, not just in the Progressive world.  To start with, there was a tendency to pair them with their male counterparts – so obviously Sarah, Rebecca and so on – but also Miriam, Abigail, Esther.

Again, in the mystical interpretations about ushpizin, it is pointed out that one feature each of these luminaries had in common was that their life story included being uprooted in some way – and yet despite this, or perhaps as a result – they brought their special characteristic to the wider world.

So whom are we going to invite into our Sukkah and into our lives this year?  What values and whose aura might enhance the lives we lead?  Whose life story has something to teach us?  Let’s remember, our ushpizin may be people who need us, or they may be people we need – even if we don’t know it yet.  After all, Abraham welcomed in strangers without knowing that they would turn out to be angels with a very special message for him personally.

In our Haftarah this morning, we heard Solomon’s intention for his temple to be a ‘house of prayer for all people’. May our sukkot and our community be a place from which all prayers might be heard too.  The last line of our short Torah readings this morning is ‘Blessed shall you be when you come in… and when you go out’.  In its context, the implication is that this blessing will come to us from God as a reward for appropriate behaviour.  The message of Sukkot is that blessing can also come from the ushpizin, those we invite into our lives.

 

Chag Sameach