Holiday

Looking for some insights or new rituals for an upcoming holiday? Here we post practical, easy to use guidelines for the holy days, both Jewish and American, that mark the way stations along the circle of the year.

To access the Holiday Archive, click here.

Taking Down A Sukkah

Our community really took shape as we build our communal sukkah together. But by the end of Sukkot, our sukkah seemed to have lost its pull, its shabbiness more sad than festive. The decorations were in tatters, and the wilted leaves and walls were damp and musty. As the holiday was ending, we felt we needed to mark the last moments of being in our sukkah, and to say farewell, to its shelter, its beauty and its promise. On the last afternoon of Sukkot, most of the folks who had built the sukkah gathered, and we drank a toast to our little group and recited the prayer for taking leave of the sukkah. Together, we imagined our little courtyard sukkah, covered in wilted construction paper chains and worn leaves, suddenly becoming the silvery scale of a wonderful sea monster, and we imagined all of us transported to Jerusalem. Bidding farewell to our sukkah, we imagined a world ready to greet the Messiah.

Meditation

May it be your will, Lord our God and the God of our ancestors, that just as we have fulfilled the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah, may we deserve to dwell in the sukkah of the Leviathan, next year in Jerusalem.

Ritual

All who have built the sukkah together join once again to say farewell, with a toast and a blessing.

Blessing

(As you contemplate how you can continue to bring the feeling of being together, sheltered in the Sukkah, all year round, you recite for the last time this year)

We praise you, Eternal God, Ruler of the Universe, who has made us holy with your mitzvot and commanded us to fulfill the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah.

Ho’shiah et amekha, u’varekh et nachala’tekha

Bless us and save us and our heritage; shelter and sustain us forever.


Teaching

What’s the Leviathan? Our sages taught that at the end of days, God will make a huge sukkah out of the skin of the Leviathan, an enormous mythical beast, for all the righteous in Jerusalem. (CLAL faculty)

Rabbi Gamliel and Rabbi Akiva were traveling on a ship during Sukkot. Rabbi Akiva took the trouble of building a sukkah on the bow of the ship. The next day, a wind blew and ripped the sukkah away. Rabbi Gamliel said, "Akiva, now where is your sukkah?" (Babylonian Talmud: Sukkot 23a)

Now the sukkah is taken apart altogether. Board after board is pulled off. The walls are folded up. The roof of branches falls in, breaks up underfoot. The courtyard is filled with little needles. The sukkah vanishes as if it had never been there before…And the etrog has been forgotten altogether. The cook has thrown it into a pan of boiling water, scalded it alive…There is a pull at my heart. The holiday has been boiled away. May Simchat Torah come soon….(Bella Chagall, Burning Lights)

Hoshia et amekha

Bless us, sustain us

(CLAL Faculty)

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