Talk given on October 11, 2025. During Sukkot, when we build temporary shelters, we reflect on what it means to not have stable housing.

Shabbat shalom.

Sukkot offers us the opportunity to perform a mitzvah, by gathering to spend a few hours with guests under the shelter of a thatched roof, sharing a meal. Rabbi Julie asked me to speak during this holiday about Shomrei’s participation in a group called Essex Together, a collaboration of houses of worship focusing on social issues, including the meaning of shelter and the hardships faced by those who lack the security of a roof over their heads.

I began learning about homelessness in the late 1980s, when I joined Jan at her synagogue, B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side.   Once or twice a month I would volunteer for their new program to serve unhoused people, spending an overnight with guests in the building’s basement.

I spoke with our guests, learning a little about their lives. They were largely employed – short order cooks, beauticians – who had been living with a cousin who could no longer house them. Or they had been in rent-controlled apartments, but the building went condo, and they were abruptly out on the street. The magnitude of the problem gripped the Metro area then, and it has only become much more severe in the decades since.

About 2 years ago, I attended a gathering here at Shomrei with several of you on social justice issues.  The speakers, who addressed ways to bring about positive change in our communities, emphasized the importance of working collectively, our effectiveness enhanced by numbers.

Soon after, Audrey recruited me to join her in representing Shomrei with Essex Together.

Essex Together is an association of about 18 mostly faith-based organizations using our collective numbers to effect change. It’s based on a successful model in community organizing. One such group successfully swayed mayors and governors to build affordable housing, resulting in thriving communities with thousands of units in East Brooklyn and the South Bronx. They have driven similar efforts in Chicago and Baltimore.

Polling their congregants, Essex Together determined that the issues of paramount importance to them are criminal justice reform and affordable housing.

Audrey herself brings deep and broad experience to the issue of criminal justice reform. I’ve been tasked with learning about Essex Together’s efforts in housing.      It’s probably not news to anyone here that New Jersey and the country at large are facing a severe housing crisis – NJ and NYC are each short about 250,000 housing units; the nationwide estimate is somewhere between 5 and 7 million units.

New construction is not keeping pace with the growing need. And what gets built is more often at the high end of the market, out of reach for working and low-income families.

So what can Essex Together do about all this?  In April, Essex Together, with Jersey City Together and Morris Area Together, held a forum for New Jersey’s gubernatorial candidates. We invited all ten, pre-met met individually with five, and finally three were able to attend and answer our questions at the packed house gathering at B’nai Keshet. The three committed that if they were elected, they would meet with us and make housing a priority. For those of you who were there, I hope you shared my deep joy in being part of that multi-faith, multiethnic assembly, impressing the two mayors and the congresswoman with our common purpose.

It has tickled my soul, to be one of your designees to this group – to meet with faith leaders from churches in Newark, Jersey City, and Montclair, synagogues in Livingston, Bloomfield, and Montclair, and  the Returning Citizens group in Newark, and other groups to make sure Trenton keeps our housing shortage a top priority.

And we look forward to working with our elected officials to identify sites where large projects can be built in the State, to create the subsidies and programs to encourage builders to invest in housing that poor people and working people can afford.  Already the Returning Citizens Group has been selected by the City of Newark to develop affordable housing on a vacant property.

Among the obstacles to creating affordable housing, and housing at all levels, are restrictive zoning and local opposition.  Many people favor building affordable housing in theory, as long as it’s Not In My Back Yard, hence the acronym NIMBY.  People typically raise concerns about preserving the character of their neighborhood, increased traffic and parking demands, property values, and the resulting need to build more class rooms.

Houses of worship are stepping up to overcome these obstacles. As their memberships dwindle, congregational leaders realize they are sitting on underutilized real estate.  This summer, a number of church leaders and congregants from Essex Together members in Montclair formed the YIGBY Action Group (Yes in God’s Back Yard)– building on a concept that has been gathering force in other towns and states.

In June, a few of us from the YIGBY coalition met with Janice Talley, Montclair’s Town Planner, who wants to help churches convert some of their unused property into affordable housing. Montclair has since been selected as one of 10 municipalities that will receive grants and training from a State program to expand our affordable housing inventory. And that means there may be funding available to assist local houses of worship pay for the architectural and engineering work to make these projects a reality. Recently, Union Congregational Church on Cooper Avenue met with neighbors  on the block (which includes our family) to build a house for 8 to 10 adults, most with disabilities, on a vacant lot the church owns.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight the tireless efforts of Shirley and David Grill and other Shomrei members over the past 25 years with HomeCorp, to create affordable housing here in Montclair.

Through the High Holidays and Sukkot, we have been mindful of those who are hungry around us, and we have responded – it was heart-warming to hear the list of Shomrei efforts that Dale and Fern shared with us on Yom Kippur, to help feed and find shelter for those without.

There’s a custom mentioned in the Zohar, and put into practice starting in the 16^th century under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Luria – the custom of welcoming the ushpizim into the Sukkah.

Ushpizim – Aramaic for guests – originally conceived to include  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Moses and Aaron; Joseph and King David – the seven shepherds of Israel, a cohort that later included Sarah, Rachel, Ruth, and Esther.

Maimonides says: “while eating and drinking, one must feed the stranger, the orphan, the widow, and other poor unfortunates…”

There was a 2004 Israeli film titled ‘Ushpizim’– – my memory is that it was very funny, and thought provoking – it expands the sense of who is included when we contemplate the guests we invite into our sukkah.

In the spirit of Sukkot, of sharing our harvest with those who are hungry, of inviting Ushpizim to find shelter in our sukkot, I want to thank you for trusting Audrey and me to be your representatives to Essex Together. We’re proud that Shomrei is participating with congregations of many faiths and backgrounds, working together to make a dent in this crisis.  We look forward to reporting on our continuing efforts in the months to come, and hopefully to ask you to come to future Essex Together actions, to join our numbers, our generosity, our faith with our neighbors in the County.

Shabbat shalom.