Tonight marks the start of the Jewish festival of Succot where Jews throughout the world gather with friends, family and guests in temporary booths set up in gardens, synagogue grounds and in some places public parks. Succot is one of my very favourite of all the Jewish festivals as it gives me an excuse to sleep outside without everyone around me thinking I’m some sort of mental case.
For those unfamiliar with Succot or Succos, spelling depending on what sort of Judasim you practise or where your Jewis family came from, there’s a brilliant explanation of the festival over at the My Jewish Learning website. They say:
*“Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, is named after the booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) in which Jews are supposed to dwell during this week-long celebration. According to rabbinic tradition, these flimsy sukkot represent the huts in which the Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after escaping from slavery in Egypt. The festival of Sukkot is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (chaggim or regalim) of the Jewish year.
Sukkot History
The origins of Sukkot are found in an ancient autumnal harvest festival. Indeed it is often referred to as hag ha-asif, “The Harvest Festival.” Much of the imagery and ritual of the holiday revolves around rejoicing and thanking God for the completed harvest. The represent the huts that farmers would live in during the last hectic period of harvest before the coming of the winter rains. As is the case with other festivals whose origins may not have been Jewish, the Bible reinterpreted the festival to imbue it with a specific Jewish meaning. In this manner, Sukkot came to commemorate the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert after the revelation at Mount Sinai, with the huts representing the temporary shelters that the Israelites lived in during those 40 years.”
Succot is always a memorable occasion for me. It’s memorable for the Succah that I put up when we lived near Stamford Hill and I so wanted to make a succah that was as halachicaly correct as possible that I used no nails or screws its construction. The last thing I wanted at that point was for some Hassid to pop his head over the fence and say ‘boy, that Succah isn’t kosher’. Instead I lashed the wood together with ropes and did it so incomptetently that it fell down on my head and knocked me out. Then there’s one of the early times that our young son slept in the Succah when he was about seven and he was so excited to be sleeping in the garden that he forgot all decorum and decided that it was a good idea to climb the cherry tree in the garden at 10pm and needed to be talked down from said tree. There’s also the many Succahs that I’ve built from scrap salvaged from various skips on the grounds that I see it as both a triumph to resuse what others discard and part of the mitzvah to make a succah at least in part from natural materials and what could be more natural than some 2” x 2” wood out of one skip and some greenery from another. However my crowning glory, my greatest of honours at Succot was when I built a Succah for the lady who is now my wife and the mother of my child. We lived at that time in a shared house in Seven Sisters in London and I wanted to build a Succah both because I’m commanded to do so and because I wanted to do it for my partner. I built this succah from cuttings from overgrown hedges from neighbours gardens, green weeds from the car park of the local DIY store, pallets and whatever wood I could find lying about. I remember waking up with her on the first morning of Succot and seeing the ‘wow’ expression on her face at her first time of waking up in a Succah. I’ve seen that ‘Wow’ expression several times since we’ve been together most notably on our wedding day and when our son was born. She told me later that nobody in her family had ever built a succah from scratch before and I was extremely honoured to be able to do this for both the Eternal One who commanded me to do this and for my now wife.
Over the years I’ve got better and better at building succahs. I’ve gone through all sorts of designs of succahs some of which have been successful and some that have not. I’ve built everything from succahs that balance on the landing of a fire escape to succahs that are built from ropes held erect by clever or lucky tensioning. Now I have what I call my ‘posh’ succah. For the rest of the year it’s a pergola used for sitting on and admiring the chickens or reading or talking crap on social media. However on Succot it becomes something hallowed. It’s equipped with tarpaulin walls, greenery for the roof held up by a lattice work of rope, decorations, lights and beds for my wife, our son and myself. It’s also (I’m working on it) going to have wifi in it as well as where we have our succah is just outside the reach of the house wifi. We sleep in our succah for as long as the British weather allows us to which is normally a couple of days at least. When we tell Jewish friends who live in warmer climates that we sleep in our succah as much as we can we normally get told something along the lines of ‘are you mad’ or ‘how can you sleep in a succah in a place that rains all the time’ or the excellent Yiddish word ‘meshuganah’ which for those who don’t know means ‘crazy’.
Succot starts at nightfall tonight and therefore I wish to wish all those who celebrate Succot, Chag Sameach Sukkot.
PS I’ll be putting up a picture of my own Succah below just as soon as I’ve cleared some of the constructional detritis from around it.