I promised my son that this year, we would clear away the dog poop and broken glass and build a sukkah in the sad patch of earth we call our backyard. Bad Jewish Mother! Who designed a holiday to just sneak up like this when I’m still soaking the kugel dish from the post-YomKippur potluck?
I’m sure back in the agrarian days it was perfectly convenient to hammer together some sticks and a peek-a-boo roof and serve up a vat ofcouscous to the neighbors, but I’m notsomuch a “tool” kind of person, and those ready-made jobbies are too damn expensive. Combined with the worldwide lulav shortage* and the impossibility of finding an etrog at Safeway, it looks like Sukkot will go uncelebrated yet again at the Yenta household.
Unless we get to count making these delectable edibles.
Chag sameach best we can, right?
*Breaking news: JPost reports that one importer from Bnei Brak was able to bring 100,000 lulavs out of Egypt and break up the greedy cartel that was price-gouging the celebratory fronds. Talk about shaking ’em down!
After going thru the site I started feeling down. I hear that non-Jews can not marry or have good friendships with Jews. Why?
Rabbi Lynn (yes female, yes Reform) had a neat low maintainace/cost Sukkot. Four saplings (or 1/2 ” poles)about 6′ long were “planted” into four concrete blocks and wedged with rocks to steady them. She then strung black lightweight fishing net around the three sides and the top. The tops of the poles were then staked out with twine, like you would stake a out a tent pole to make it steady. She had her kids decorate the sukkot with plastic fruit, fall foliage and catails. The plastic fruit doesn’t rot and can be reused from year to year. Fresh local fruit & vegetables, except for apples, are harder to come by this time of year in upstate NY and is wasteful. Instead she’d donate what she would have used as “fresh” to the local food pantry. The rest was “free” from the area. The netting allows you to see the stars through it at night.
Nice, Dave, thanks! I’ll keep in mind for next year. We’ll be bumming in someone else’s sukkah this weekend so the kids will get somewhat of a Sukkot experience.
Wesley- untrue. Plenty of Jews hae meaningful relationships with non-Jews. Not sure where you got that idea.