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What Exactly Is a Sukkah?

Sep 24, 2021 By David Zev Moster | Commentary | Sukkot

Have you ever asked yourself what defines a sukkah? Not how to build one or what makes it kosher, but why have one in the first place? What is its purpose? Was the sukkah part of daily life in ancient Israel? Did it have a role outside the holiday that bears its name?

In God鈥檚 Image

Sep 17, 2021 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Ha'azinu | Sukkot

What does it mean to be created in God鈥檚 image? Or to act in a God-like way? As I reread Parashat Ha鈥檃zinu, I was struck by the ways Moses鈥檚 song poetically develops God鈥檚 care for the Israelites, and I discovered in the vivid and diverse metaphors the beginnings of an answer. From the opening lines, where God鈥檚 words are likened to varieties of rain, sustaining and giving life to all, to God as an eagle 鈥渨ho rouses his nestlings鈥� and 鈥渂ears them along his pinions鈥� (Deut. 32:11), this God builds up, guides, teaches, and protects. God provides for the Israelites鈥� physical needs with gifts of abundance, nurturing the people with 鈥渉oney from the crag鈥� as a mother nurses her child (Deut. 32:13). The Israelites鈥� lack of gratitude inflames God鈥檚 anger, but God bestows mercy and forgiveness, despite there being no mention of teshuva (repentance). God gives.

We are All Sukkah-Dwellers

Oct 2, 2020 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Commentary | Sukkot

Since the accidental discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm R枚ntgen in 1895 and the subsequent creation of X-ray machines, we have been able to view our bodies through two different lenses. The first is what we see in the mirror鈥攁 body of flesh, which takes various forms and distinguishes one individual from another. The second is not visible to the naked eye; it is the skeletal structure that supports the flesh and organs that surround it. Though both are necessary constituent elements of our physical being, we are generally much more conscious of our outer being than our inner one. And yet, our bones are more durable than our flesh. Long after we die and our flesh has wasted away, our skeletal structure continues to exist.

Human Lives and the Natural World

Oct 18, 2019 By Shuly Rubin Schwartz | Commentary | Sukkot

For many of us who live in dense metropolitan areas, spending time in national parks gives us a unique opportunity to experience in more immediate fashion the majesty of our world. Vacationing in the Canadian Rockies this past summer鈥攈iking in the mountains, walking on glaciers, boating in deep blue lakes, cooling off in the spray of gorgeous waterfalls, identifying rare birds and seeing moose, elk, deer, and the occasional bear (thankfully from a distance)鈥擨 felt awed and fortunate to behold this.

Cantillation for Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Ruth

Oct 23, 2018 By 91快播 | Prayer Recordings | Pesah | Shavuot | Sukkot

Recordings by Cantor Sarah Levine (CS ’17).

When Buildings Fall

Sep 28, 2018 By Julia Andelman | Commentary | Sukkot

From my childhood perspective growing up in an apartment building in suburban Boston, having a sukkah was a symbol of arrival鈥攁nd our family didn鈥檛 have one. Most of our friends lived in private homes, and so, with a mixture of enjoyment and jealousy, we traipsed all around town to have our yom tov meals in other people鈥檚 sukkot.

A Sukkah Remembers

Oct 4, 2017 By Ofra Arieli Backenroth | Commentary | Sukkot

In his poem 鈥淭he Jews,鈥� Yehuda Amichai (1924鈥�2000) bestows on us a full typology of the Jewish people鈥攆rom the standpoints of both Jews themselves and outsiders. Some of those images remain with us: the Jew wearing a Turkish turban in a Rembrandt painting, the Chagall Jew holding a violin as he flies over rooftops, and other vivid images. In the middle of the poem, Amichai mentions a sukkah鈥攈is grandfather鈥檚 sukkah, in particular. Amichai turns the memory of the Israelites鈥� wanderings in the desert that the sukkah usually evokes on its head, and describes the sukkah as an object that itself remembers and reflects back to us the history of the Jews.

Our Very Life

Oct 4, 2017 By 91快播 Alumni | Commentary | Sukkot

One time it happened that a priest poured the libation on his feet, and all the people pelted him with their etrogim. (M. Sukkah 4:9)

The above Mishnah describes a scandalous episode set on the festival of Sukkot during the Second Temple period. The previous mishnah explains that on each day of the festival there was a ceremony where the priests would fill a golden flask with water from the Shiloah spring and bring it to the Temple to offer as a sacrifice on the altar. The special sacrifice of water was only offered on Sukkot. All other days of the year wine would be poured on the altar.