After New Year, we look forward the tiring day of fasting for Yom Kippur. However, we are already hearing about the jollity of of Sukkot, October 2nd in 2020, a harvest festival, when fruits and/or greenery are hung on a temporary dwelling outside the house or religious buildings.
If you live in a block of flats, or are too elderly or lazy, or not Jewish, you might still be invited to a neighbour's or a communal Sukkah service, in an awning bedecked with hanging fruits and grenerywith prayers, and servings of food such as donuts and honey. Kosher donuts. Home made donuts. Or just fruits.
UK
I recall going to the Northwood and Pinner synagogue. A large awning was built in a car park against the wall.
India
When I took a trip to India, driving to Agra, by a driver-guide, I saw we passed fields of crops and the little, leaning ramshackle huts in fields at harvest time. Then I saw a man standing by one. I asked, "What's that little wooden hut in the middle of the field?"
My local Indian guide told me, "The guards are living in the hut. In the middle of the field."
"Guarding what?"
"Guarding harvest."
"Do they sleep there?"
"Yes. All day. All night."
"Why are they there?"
"To guard the - what do you say?"
"Bales?"
"Yes. To guard the harvest from animals. And people. Better safe than sorry, isn't it?"
"What if it rains?"
"Yes. Also to watch the weather. Summon human help if it rained and harvest had to be moved under cover."
Suddenly the succah made sense. A hut at harvest time. Not inside your building, but outside, watching your harbest. In London in September, we had to put netting over our grape vines to keep off the birds. maybe squirrels. Foxes. So that hut, from before the days of big glass picture windows, is a reminder of the old days.
I remember standing in a neighbour's house's sukkah in London. He gave me a frond to hold. He said, 'You have to face first north, then west, then south, then east."
I got it wrong. Id din't know which way was north. East is Jerusalem. From London. But houses one side of the road face a different direction from the other side of the street. Like many people, when I get things wrong, and told to redo it, start again, I get irritated.
I decided, enough of this old-fashioned nonsense.
However, I can now take a wider view. The members of a Liberal synagogue tried to modernise their synagogue services on Saturdays. No more parading around the aisles in a circle from the altar and back, led by the rabbi, holding the torah (bible written on a scroll, in a handsome velvet case with beautiful embroidery by the ladies sewing group). No more little bells.
Everybody objected. They liked the parade. they liked the bells. They liked the torah coming near enough to see it. They liked the service as it was when they were younger, were children.
Ah, I sigh. So modern Jews try to be rational. Yet, emotionally, we, as Jews or spectators, also enjoy the rituals. Just as travellers worldwide, or simply on the internet, go physically, or stop working to see a video, to watch natives dancing in traditional costumes, singing traditional songs, all over the world.
Why? It is a link with the past. Something which we do and pass on, continuing into the future. Our way of cheating death, feeling we are a link in the unbroken chain or life and tradition, passed from one generation and the next.
Useful Websites
Wikipedia - Sukkah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkah
About the author
Angela Lansbury is travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Contact Angela if you need a speech, podcast intervieweee, workshop or guest blog. Please share links to your favourite posts.
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