15-year-old Adin Stanleigh cleans palm branches used to cover a sukkah, or ritual booth, used during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, in Jerusalem, Israel, Oct. 11, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Ronen Zvulun.

I live on the 30th floor with no balcony or courtyard below. The possibility of building a Sukkah of my own is zero. For the festival of Sukkot, I do the rounds of the various synagogues and places nearby that have Sukkot, and there are plenty of them.

My favorite is the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, Shearith Israel — the Remnant of Israel. A very appropriate name for a community that was originally established by refugees from the expulsion from Spain in 1490. It is a few blocks away from me on Central Park West, in its present location in an imposing, majestic 19th century building.

I doubt it has any members today who are descendants of Jews from Iberia, but the community adheres strictly in style, music, and rituals to these unique traditions and pronunciations, which are distinct from both mainstream Ashkenazi and Sephardi rituals.

My first experience of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York was over 30 years ago, when I was invited to give the sermon at the bar mitzvah of the stepson of a very close friend of mine and somebody who I miss to this very day, Howard Ronson. Before I was allowed to speak, there were two conditions. One was that I had to wear canonicals. I had never previously or since worn canonicals, which are somber clerical clothes borrowed from the non-Jewish clergy and particularly favored by 19th century rabbis. The second was that I had to walk behind a member of the board who led me in a dignified walk up towards the ark, where other members of the board were sitting, and I had to bow towards them first and only then could I proceed with my sermon.

When I moved to New York many years later, I went to visit the synagogue. I found the services sparsely attended and drawn out, and not the sort of religious experience that I relished — except on a Friday night, which was a very short service, no sermon, and an excellent male voice choir hidden out of sight above the ark, singing a selection of tunes of a very specific Hispanic style.

I admired the long-serving rabbi, Mark Angel. Descended from Jews of Rhodes, born and brought up in the American Orthodox world, speaking Ladino, and with a strong Spanish and Portuguese tolerant religious tradition, he was open minded and tolerant, having the fortitude to stand by his values no matter what was going on around him in the Orthodox world.  He was followed briefly by his talented academic son, and today the pulpit is occupied by a brilliant, unusual minister, Rabbi Soloveitchik, a descendant of a unique rabbinic dynasty, who has a photographic memory and whose interests range from Talmud to sports, art, literature, and history.

And this was where I went to enjoy a delightful Sukkah with highly congenial company. The Sukkah is inside the synagogue building in a room which has a roof that pulls back, and the Schach is placed over the gap and decorated intricately by the ladies of the community.

This festival is rounding off a month of intense restorative spirituality. Over Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I joined the Koznitz Chasidim on the Upper West Side, where the services were sung with gusto, passion, and spirituality, non-stop, from beginning to end. After another year of suffering, sadness, and uncertainty about the future, it was so therapeutic. I came out walking on air.

Then I was brought down to earth, and my ecstasy was diminished by the attack on the Jews of Manchester, the city of my birth. But then I got ready for Sukkot, the festival of joy — bouncing back as we always do. And what could add more to my joy and delight than to hear the news that at long last it seems the war in Gaza is over, the hostages will soon be returned, and I could ignore and laugh at the pathetic waves of Jew hatred sweeping and swirling around the world. I know they will never subside and frankly I will not let it get me down.

We have the beauty and spirituality of our tradition and the many impressive talents our community encompasses to inspire and delight us, and to know that all this is worth fighting for. And we will dance again on Simchat Torah.

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.