Post 9-11, the Jewish Festival of Sukkah accents a message of particular importance.

Following the High Holy Days, the Jewish New Year, and the Day of Atonement, families around the world observe the Feast of Tabernacles, sometimes called the Festival of Booths. During this time, Jewish people build a temporary housing outside of their normal homes, cover these structures with green foliage, and decorate them with harvest fruits and vegetables. By design, the sukkahs, as the booths are called, are temporary. For one full week, we are commanded to live in makeshift huts leaving behind the solid comforts of our homes. As if the message of the High Holy Days isn't strong enough-that life is exceedingly fragile and temporary-four days later the Festival of Sukkah arrives to underscore and repeat the point.

Not realizing how transient they are, we take many things for granted in our lives. Until ill, we take health for granted. Until unloved and rejected, we take love and acceptance as givens. In our nation, we used to take freedom and security for granted, along with appreciation of and respect for our country. After 9-11, all that changed.

Sukkot, the festival itself, teaches us to view the world differently and to value every waking moment of our lives. In keeping with the holiday's theme, the physical appearance of the sukkah, the booth, invariably changes over the seven-day length of the holiday. The crisp, green foliage that originally covered its roof yellows and shrivels. Unless traumatic and abrupt, most changes in life occur gradually, taking months if not years to realize. Sukkot reminds us that change, good or bad, is inevitable and often sudden. Sometimes change makes us better, both personally and nationally, by making us grow and reevaluate what we have and who we are. Understandably, we all want to have lives the way they were one year ago, on September 10, 2001. We want to live in a world where goodness prevails and peace is shared by all, where evil is aggressively isolated and removed.

Over time, the Jewish Sukkah has become associated with peace. Every Friday night, for example, we welcome the Sabbath with the declaration, "Spread over us your Sukkah of Peace." But peace, like the sukkah, is not lasting or perfect. According to Jewish law, the sukkah, the booth, does not need four walls, nor do the walls have to reach the ground, and they can be made of almost any material.

Like the sukkah, lasting peace cannot exist if we insist on it being perfect. An unexpected wind can topple the makeshift sukkah. Similarly, a sudden change can threaten the very foundation of our lives. Americans and people around the globe relearned that lesson a year ago this month. So this year, as we of every faith build our lives, our personal sukkahs, let us pray for peace, however fragile and imperfect, and resolve to build a better world for all humankind.

Melville H. Nahin is an attorney in Los Angeles, a Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of California (1998-99), Past Venerable Master of Los Angeles Valley, present Chairman of Los Angeles Scottish Rite Childhood Language Disorders Clinic, Past Master Ionic Lodge No. 520 and Southern California Research Lodge, and Chairman of the Board of Governors Shriners Hospitals for Children-Los Angeles Unit. Ill. Nahin began contributing to the Scottish Rite Journal (then titled the New Age Magazine) in September 1977. This article marks his 75th publication, a record for the magazine of the most articles published by one author. Congratulations, Ill. Nahin!