Let’s build a sukkah

Joseph Henson President

When the High Holy Days come to a close with the Neilah service on Yom Kippur and we have enjoyed our Break-the-Fast meal with family and friends, we are truly ready to start the new year. Following this prolonged and deep period of personal introspection, we reach the festival of Sukkot. A time not only to build a personal sukkah, but for also building the Jewish community. Sukkot is a perfect time for family togetherness and fun, which for us meant building our own family sukkah.

A sukkah is not meant to be a permanent structure, but rather a portable shelter as it was for those escaping Egypt, and as it can symbolically be the same for us! Building a sukkah serves as our physical connection to the 40-year ordeal the Israelites lived through in the desert before reaching their permanent home in Israel. A sukkah’s purpose is to be a shelter that can be easily moved. Thankfully, building a sukkah is not too complex and does not take much more than an afternoon. For a few years, when our children were in the six to twelve age range, we would build a sukkah on our backyard deck. While our sukkah may not have strictly followed Jewish law, being able to physically reenact part of the Exodus story added insight to our understanding of the Exodus from Egypt.

For the sukkah’s minimum of three walls, we used lattice tied to the deck railing. The roof, or sechach, was a bamboo mat that we unrolled to complete the construction. The last step was the favorite of my wife and children — making colorful construction paper chains and picking which fruits to hang from the sechach. Then, in went the patio furniture and it was time for the family to say the blessings and have a meal in the sukkah … or at least a hardy snack. About the same time as the children’s interest in making construction paper chains waned, we stopped building our own sukkah. Thereafter, we would join in with our synagogue in building a community sukkah.

Now, having settled in Southwest Florida, we celebrate with our Beth Tikvah family. We would love to invite everyone to join us in our Beth Tikvah sukkah at the conclusion of Shabbat, Oct. 19. Families can join together in the sukkah for the mitzvah of saying the appropriate blessing for sitting in the sukkah and the hamotzi as we share a piece of challah and other delicacies.

Sukkot concludes with another joyous holiday, Simchat Torah. Please return to Beth Tikvah on the evening of Oct. 24. Join us in dancing with the Torah as we celebrate the completion of the yearly cycle and begin the next triennial reading. You will enjoy an evening of dancing, singing and eating, and we will enjoy having you with us!

L' Shanah Tovah