This is my first time really celebrating Sukkot. I was surprised to realize how little I knew about the holiday. Over eight days Sukkot celebrates the harvest and commemorates the passage through the wilderness. It is a particularly important holiday because we fulfill the important mitzvahs of building a Sukkah (a hut) and the mitvah of eating each meal under it. Throughout the holiday the sukkah becomes the living area of the house, and all meals are eaten in it. On each day of the holiday, members of the household recite a blessing over the Four Spices.
This is my first time really celebrating the holiday. What I am finding particularly meaningful in it is that Sukkot is centered on sanctifying the ordinary. Almost any other day, a meal is just a meal. But during Sukkot, we are completing a mitzvah just by eating our meals in the Sukkah. We even sanctify the water, and all of the sudden something so common becomes holy, with much more spiritual valor than normally. Eating and sleeping in the Sukkah; a make-shift temporary hut (that we each construct), makes you really appreciate what you have while also realizing that our needs are far less demanding than our desires. Simple food, simple drink, and simple shelter for eight days maintain us; and yet beyond the eight days would seem unbearable for most of us; especially considering how privileged and fortunate we are to live comfortably. Yet not only do we stick it out for eight days, we spend each day celebrating with friends and family under the Sukkah. It’s not a time for TVs, cell phones, computers; it’s all about making face time.
Last night all the guys from Machon Shlomo went to Rabbi Sigler’s house to have a Sukkot celebration in his Sukkah. It was a great experience. What came after was even more interesting. A number of us went to Mea Shearim, a neighborhood in Jerusalem that is one of the most ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the world. They are a very small population, some of which gets its news from posters pasted along the walls of the quarter (as most people there don’t want to have TVs, radio, or internet). It is often making news in Israel; primarily for their opposition to the actions of the Israeli government.
The below pictures and video are from a huge Sukkot celebration in Mea Shearim.
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