The sukkah truck-bus rides around Jerusalem. The music from that vehicle fills the air, not sure if it goes to the heavens above. Then, at a main intersection, the Yom Tov truck-bus pulls off to the side usually on the sidewalk. The loudspeaker blares out. “Anyone who wants to make the berachah on lulav and etrog come right over – chairs, food, wine are also prepared for you to eat and drink. Then you can make the berachah leshev ‘to sit in the sukkah.’”
In the United States a few years ago, Rabbi Eytan Hammerman, whose congregation was in Harrison, New York, decided to bring the sukkah to his members. He had a box built with three sides in which two people sitting on chairs next to a table could fit. He put a few crosspieces on the empty top of the box and placed branches on them. Rabbi Hammerman had a bicycle-store owner connect a large-size bike to the sukkah box. Of course, he had the religious school children decorate the sides of the sukkah box. A speaker was attached and sent forth the music from an iPhone.
A box with fruit and candy and little cakes was placed in a large plastic container attached to the back of the bicycle. Away he pedaled. Rabbi Hammerman rode to his members’ homes; he rode to the Jewish Community Center; he rode to the Old Folks’ Home where the more able came out to enjoy. Children followed him on his route singing the holiday melodies. Oh yes, the local newspaper put a picture of the bicycle-sukkah in the newspaper, and hailed “Hammerman Reaches His Members with His Mobile Sukkah.”
Jewish community residents in Zürich, Switzerland, from the 1920s through the 1960s, even some do it today, built their tiny sukkot on the roof of their buildings. A Zürich resident, now in Jerusalem for many years, described how the sukkah was made. “The boards of the sukkah, stored in the attic under the roof, were carried up the one floor where the sukkah was built – the children came up to affix the decorations.”
Who used the sukkah? I asked. “Only the men and some boys climbed up to the roof and there made kiddush and ate. After the birkat hamazon, the Grace after Meals, the girls of the families in the building came up to clean the table. The plates and glasses were brought down carefully so they would not fall and break.” With the lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron) it was a bit different. “The men brought the lulavim and etrogim home after the tefilot – Yom Tov services. Every woman who wanted to, and every girl who wanted, could make the berachah with the lulav and etrog.”
HERE IN Jerusalem, I can feel a new spirit in the air. While standing and watching the new buildings rise into the atmosphere and the tunnel being dug at the entrance to the city, I know that I will never see those projects completed. However, changing the Talmudic statement just slightly, “Someone built these buildings for me and so now great energy is being poured into the multifaceted construction in Jerusalem for the future.”
I am not satisfied with each new structure above nor everything proceeding below but I know that is progress. Jerusalem will have the Kotel and other ancient structures and tunnels, but the face of Jerusalem will be changed forever. I never traced the growth of the city in four decades living here, but there have been dramatic changes. Now, many more because our city is a great international metropolis.
At this season of the year, we are blessed to have hundreds of sukkot built, maybe even thousands. There is an amazing number of the citizenry walking around with the lulav in the one hand adorned by the willow and myrtle. In the other hand they hold a box or a container with the etrog. Unlike myself because of my dried-up, lack-of-feeling fingers, many people carry the four elements of the “Sukkot bouquet” together.
Two elements of the Sukkot holiday have been a highlight of my life here in Jerusalem. One has been the construction of the sukkah with our children. They now build their own. The other is the purchase of the Arba Minim (Four Species) in the main lulav and etrog open-air market near the shuk of Mahaneh Yehuda.
This is our country; “the best on earth” so we can purchase these items and, of course, speaking with a little bit more fervor, our sukkot are the best in the world.
Back in the early years of the 20th century, according to statistics, only a hundred or so sukkot would be constructed in Eretz Yisrael. Clearly, the population was smaller, had a different approach to da’at (religion) but, of course, no make-your-own sukkah kits existed. We are familiar with the boards, saved year to year, to be the sides of the sukkah. Newer discarded old doors were sought every year. I know a few, in particular, which will graduate to a sukkah wall this year (a picture of it is shown).
Near my Diur Mugan (assisted living facility) is a stand of do-it-yourself sukkah kits located on Ussishkin Street. The proprietors, usually young yeshiva bahurim, (young unmarried men) will even deliver for a fee and if you choose, construct yours for payment. The thrill of Sukkot for me personally is to walk around and see the narrow porches on many buildings filled with a sukkah. That space is used daily for the various meals. It takes quite a talent to make those “holy and utilitarian” structures fit, but they do.
In Wilmington, Delaware, where I and my late wife and our three children lived in the early seventies, we had a large yard with a tree in the back to hold a sukkah up, but not to cover it. A wonderful couple, Edith and Charles Schnitzer had lived in the community since their early years. Charley was the gabbai (sexton) of our synagogue for almost 25 years. I so enjoyed seeing him at the side of the Torah regularly Shabbat-in, Shabbat-out and holidays too.
He was an engineer having constructed several homes in our community. “Rabbi,” he said to me, “I will be bringing the boards to help you build your sukkah.” What a treat it was for the six years we lived there for our three children and me to build the sukkah. Rita, of blessed memory, decorated the cloth sides for our sukkah. Here in Israel, one year another English newspaper recognized Mr. Schnitzer as “a master sukkah builder.” (P.S. Their two sons made aliyah many years ago. Sadly, their daughter died at a very young age.)
IN THE US Army when I served as a chaplain, 1965-1967, there was a standing order at my post, Fort Sill, to build an “annex” next to my small office building between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The boards for the sukkah were stored somewhere carefully. A detail of men was assigned to make our little temporary building rise and to bring fresh-cut s’chach (leafy covering for a sukkah) for the roof.
Every night, the post commanders (generals) and soldiers were invited as well as Christian chaplains and their assistants to be our guests in the sukkah. Twice during the week, we served corned beef sandwiches sent to us by the Jewish community center in Dallas Texas, 300 km. to the south.
One year when I was the chaplain, a busload of young Jewish women from Dallas for whom we had arranged housing, came up for the Shabbat of Sukkot. We only had three lulavim and etrogim sets, one from the Lubavitcher Rebbe and two from the Jewish Welfare Board. Of course, we did not need them for Shabbat, since that day the berachot on lulav and etrog are not said. On Saturday night, we arranged a dance at the Officers’ Club. As you can imagine, the trainees, most of whom would go to Vietnam, were thrilled. I can only recall one shidduch (match) that came out of those social events. What I did forget; on Shabbat we ate in our Sukkah for lunch. A group of privates served us in spanking-sharp uniforms.
The word simha (gladness or joy) is reserved for Sukkot, Z’man Simhateinu, the time of our rejoicing. For me, after my difficult moments in the last days of 5780 and 5781, I am looking forward to smahot, beginning with Sukkot on September 20. Being more specific, I anticipate the nights of Simhat Beit Hashoeva filled with whirling young and old in commemoration of the ancient water-drawing festivities.
In this age, some women still have not graduated to dancing with the men. They, for the most part, have their own Simhat Beit Hashoeva celebration.
And today and probably forever, the men dance on Simhat Torah. However, the women dance separately with the Torah scrolls capturing the spiritual joy too.
Coronavirus has not ended but Z’man Simhateinu is ours to enjoy.