What Was I Thinking?

Did I mention that my husband is a biomedical engineer? “Handy” doesn’t begin to describe him. All this time I’ve been thinking we’d get a sukkah kit, maybe from The Sukkah Project, which lets you order the kit but get most of the materials locally to save on shipping. One look at the pricing and Eric said, “Oh, they must be making a fortune. I can do this a lot cheaper.”

Our friends Dov and Leslie (she’s the one who talked me into this, I might add) made a wood sukkah a couple of years ago and now the wood is warped, so Eric wants to use PVC, which is pretty expensive if you buy it as a kit. But if you design it yourself and have the materials delivered by Lowes?  A fraction of the price!

He’d design the whole thing tonight, except I remind him that we don’t know all the rules. What are the rules, anyway? You have to be able to see through the roof. Don’t you have to build it on a specific day and take it down on another specific day? Will he need to take a day off of work to do this? How much can we do ahead of time?

His eyes gleam. Now I've done it. I've given him a project.

So the type of sukkah he has in mind now might look a little like this one from The Sukkah Project:

Kind of your basic Tinker Toys design.

To figure out the rules of design, I looked up an article I remember reading in the New Jersey Jewish News last Sukkot and I came across a contest held last year called Sukkah City NYC 2010. Check these out!

Wow! Alas, Eric is much more of a practical engineer than an artist. And if it were up to me, the whole thing would probably collapse when the wind blew, so it’s definitely up to him.

As for the rules, Sukkah City has this to say: "The basic contraints seem simple: the structure must be temporary, have at least two and a half walls, be big enough to contain a table, and have a roof made of shade-providing organic materials through which one can see the stars.Yet a deep dialogue of historical texts intricately refines and interprets these constraints--arguing, for example, for a 27x27x38-inch minimum volume; for a maximum height of 30 feet ... even, in one famous instance, whether it is kosher to adaptively reuse a recently deceased elepahnt as a wall. (It is.)"

Ew.

Is This The Holiday I've Been Missing?

Anyone who has spent Sukkot in Israel has experienced something that I think few Americans have ever seen. Thanks to Rabbi Joel Abraham of Temple Sholom for sharing this story:

"When we were living in Jerusalem (where I met my wife Michelle when we were both in our first year at Hebrew Union College), we saw sukkot everywhere. Every restaurant on the midrachov (Ben Yehudah street) had a sukkah over their outdoor tables. Across from Michelle's apartment there was a family that lived on the second floor who put a sukkah on scaffolding that you entered by crawling out their apartment window.

"Our apartment had three balconies. One of them was in a terraced part of the building. Our landlords came by, just before the holiday, to show us how to take off the ceiling panels to transform the covered porch in to a seventh floor sukkah. It occurred to me that, in the United States, we did a disservice when comparing Christmas to Chanukah. The holiday when every Israeli creates a decoration in their home, and invites all their friends to come in and see is not Chanukah, but Sukkot.

"The proof was that a friend of mine went into the market in Mea Sharim (one of the most Orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem) and saw silvery decorations for sale. When he got closer, he saw that they were labeled 'Felix Navidad' and 'Hecho en Mexico.'"

Tinsel! Awesome. Oooh, what else do we get to use? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.

An Excuse for a Party

Our backyard without a sukkah.

This blog is called “We Bought a Sukkah,” but we haven’t actually bought one yet. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. For the past few years I, my husband and our son (and, more recently, our now 15-month old daughter) have had a perfectly good time attending parties in other people’s sukkahs, the temporary structures that Jews put up in their yards every year to celebrate the harvest festival of Sukkot, which literally means “Booths.” I was hoping we’d get invited to some more this year.

But then, about a month ago, a good friend—one who throws great sukkah dinner parties— says to me, “You and Eric should really build a sukkah. He’s handy. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

You have to understand, I’ve always liked the idea of building our own sukkah. They taught us at Hebrew school that you’re supposed to eat in one every year and even sleep in one. Lying out under the stars (you’re supposed to be able to see through the roof—that’s how temporary these things are) sounded so nice. But I also grew up in Kansas, where every year cold, windy storms sort of put a damper on that kind of thing, and until we joined Temple Sholom I never got invited to anyone’s sukkah to actually eat in one, let alone camp out. The closest I ever got was hanging fruit up in the sukkah at our synagogue when I was, like, five.

“They’re the perfect outdoor party space,” says my friend, which I have to admit is true.

“I don’t know. It seems like a lot of work,” I say. “Maybe when my kids are older.”

“But when they’re young like this is when you make memories,” says the mom of two. “It’s such a fun Jewish holiday. You know how much fun it is to decorate a Christmas tree?” I nod. Secretly (and sometimes not so secretly, if the term “Hannukah bush” means anything to you), I believe that every Jew suffers Christmas tree envy. “Well, we get to decorate this every year. It’s so much fun!”

I realize that I can buy those twinkly lights I’ve always wanted.

Sold.