Voices of WRJ: Yom Rishon Shel Sukkot

You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I  The Eternal your God. (Leviticus 23:42–43)

As a child, we visited our cousin’s Sukkah each year, and I promised myself then that someday when I was adult, I would build my own Sukkah. Each year we built the Sukkah on our deck, first as just adults and later including children as our family grew. Many times, our Chavurah came to help build the Sukkah. We saved all the High Holiday cards and turned them into decorations, and the kids made beautiful harvest pictures, shalom signs, and paper chains. In the Midwest, it is a tradition to put corn stalks on for the roof instead of evergreens, and each year we would go to the farm stand to purchase the corn stalks, apple cider, gourds and more.  In time, the cousins who I had visited  as a child stopped putting up their own Sukkah, and I when I invited them to visit ours, they brought me the colorful string of fruit lights they had always hung. I was honored and felt the power of tradition. We invited friends and family to our Sukkot Open House each year and asked them to bring donations for the food pantry. I baked cookies, put out the apple cider and prayed the bees would not bother us. Each year we felt blessed to have such a wonderful community around us.

One year, I came home from work to find many neighbors working in my back yard. There had been a windstorm, and according to my kids (who were in the house) the Sukkah literally levitated. Unfortunately, after it flew like Dorothy’s house it crashed and broke into many pieces. My neighbors, many who were not Jewish, lovingly understood the importance of this fragile structure. Again, we were reminded of the blessing of community. Our story is much like the Yiddish song A Sukele a Kleyne, which tells the story of a young girl who warns her father that the winds are heavy, and the Sukkah is about to collapse. “Don’t be foolish and don’t be upset,” the father responds. “There have been almost 2,000 years of ominous winds and our Sukkah has managed to prevail.” And YES, our Sukkah did manage to prevail.

A Sukkah is fragile and vulnerable, much like we all are in these challenging times. The Sukkah reminds us of the presence of Adonai in our lives and the importance of community. It is a different world these days. We long for hugs, tranquility, and reassurance.  It is community through Facebook, Zoom calls, and social distance visits, and we pray that through all these new media we can still feel, as before, that we are in the Sukkah, the shelter, of God’s protecting presence. May we make kind, wise, and safe choices, find comfort in our communities, and remembering the powerful symbol of the Sukkah, feel the warmth and love of Adonai’s presence.  

Chag Sameach.

Carol Berger is a WRJ North American Board Member, WRJ Midwest District Vice President, and a Past President at Congregation BJBE Sisterhood in Deerfield, Illinois.