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Photograph by Jeff Kearns
Jews around the world are celebrating Sukkot, the 'Festival of Tabernacles'
'And You Shall Dwell in Booths'
The Jewish holiday Sukkot celebrates the autumn harvest and the change of seasons
By Laura Bernell
Elizabeth Klein stumbled over piles of fallen books and broken plates. Dazed by the 7.3 earthquake and too frightened to stay inside her modest Campbell home, she tripped on the rubble that had been her back porch and stepped inside a flimsy bamboo hut that stood, unscathed, in her backyard.
Liz Klein and her husband, Howard, had built this temporary shelter as part of the observance of the Jewish holiday Sukkot (soo-KOTE). The hut, called a sukkah--Hebrew for booth; sukkot is the plural--was made of bamboo and wood with a latticed roof lightly covered with palm fronds. Though the quake had moved the entire structure about six inches, it had moved all of a piece and still stood intact. Inside its flimsy walls, Elizabeth Klein felt safe.
"As frightened as I was by the earthquake, it became very, very clear Who shelters us," she says. "That day was a reminder that the sukkah is a sanctuary--a safe place."
Then as now, handmade drawings made by her son Daniel, 24, and daughter Adina, 18, adorned the wooden panels and bamboo. Liz's favorite is a cornucopia made of yarn by Daniel as a kindergartner. Every year, the family hangs pomegranates, oranges, lemons and strings of cranberries from the lattice ceiling. In October 1989, these crimson gourds and golden globes swung madly but did not fall. "Not one chair collapsed, not one picture fell down," Klein recalls.
The Klein family celebrates Sukkot again this year in the same Campbell house.
"Every year I remember how wonderful it was during the earthquake to be in the sukkah," Klein says. "I love this holiday. I love being in the sukkah. It's a safe, beautiful place and I feel very much a sense of God's presence."
Sukkot is among many world holidays set aside to celebrate the harvest, mark a change of seasons and give thanks for the Earth's bounty. Jews all over the world celebrate Sukkot, or the "feast of tabernacles," for it is explicitly ordained in the Book of Leviticus: "And you shall take ... the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees and willows of the brook and you shall rejoice seven days. You shall dwell in booths."
Photograph by Jeff Kearns
Rejoice: Howard and Elizabeth Klein will eat all their meals in the sukkah during Sukkot, which began on Friday.
Dwelling in booths reconnects the descendants of the Hebrews with their wanderings in the desert, when they lived in tents and were provided with manna. "The people were frightened," Klein says, "just like we were during the earthquake or from hate crimes, but the sukkah reminds us that we have protection. Our ancestors were protected from the heat of the desert, and the clouds showed us which way to go."
Rabbi Eitan Julius of Congregation Sinai in Willow Glen explains that Sukkot is the holiday of the full moon of the autumn harvest.
"Legendarily it was our ancestors in the desert and our ancestors in the picking fields who dwelled in these booths, protected from the sun. Here in California we can empathize with this quite keenly, since we share a climate similar to that of Israel.
"On this holiday," Rabbi Julius explains, "we are reminded of the fragility of our material security, but at the same time we are called on to celebrate the bounty with which God provides us. One of the paradoxes and beauty of the whole holiday is its simplicity: The sukkah is so fragile, yet it represents the certainty of God's sheltering protection. So that while the sukkah is temporary, we treat it with an almost greater reverence than our permanent homes."
To fulfill the commandment, observant Jews like the Kleins lay palm fronds over a latticed roof.
"There has to be more shade than sun, but you have to be able to see through to the sky," Klein says. "This reminds us that the clouds of glory protected us from the sun in the desert."
The Kleins use about 12 palm fronds, each between eight and 10 feet wide. When Sukkot time draws near, Liz Klein calls a tree trimmer and buys his biggest fronds.
But building the booth does not, by itself, complete the commandment.
"We dwell in a sukkah for seven days," Klein says simply, but reverently. And for those seven days, they eat all meals and entertain guests inside the sukkah. "So instead of sitting in the house and watching TV, we visit out there until it's time to go to bed," she says.
Besides the physical guests they invite each day of Sukkot, there are those that are spiritually present, Klein says, and she names the patriarchs of the Old Testament: "Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron, David. We'd all like to be visited by someone like that," she laughs lightly.
Photograph by Jeff Kearns
In the Palm: Daniel Klein (left) and his father Howard arrange palm fronds on the latticed roof of the sukkah in the backyard of their Campbell home.
The Kleins have entertained as many as 18 physical guests in the sukkah at one time. Their first sukkah was very small--just large enough for one bridge table. Now it's big enough for two long dinner tables. And one year, when their daughter Adina was 16, she had an all-night study group for about 10 or 12 girls.
"It was like a big slumber party," says Klein. "They had songs and a treasure hunt and studied readings about the holiday they'd gotten off the Internet."
The decorations of pomegranates and oranges and strings of cranberries create a festive atmosphere inside the sukkah. "It's a time of our rejoicing, like a giant Thanksgiving," she describes.
What if it rains?
"A little rain--you should stay in the sukkot," she says. "But if it gets really soaked, you can go inside."
"It's a beautiful community tradition," Rabbi Julius says. "When a lot of people have their sukkot up, each one has its own flavor and style. People make pilgrimages, or visit other people's sukkot, as well."
The ritual also includes the purchase of four species of plant that grow in Israel in the fall. These are a date palm, a myrtle, a willow and a citron, which is related to the lemon tree. These four species are bound together, to signify various unities of the spiritual world.
On the final night of Sukkot, a special prayer for rain is recited. Rain in the desert, of course, has deep and special significance. "The first rains are about to come; there's a kind of cleansing," Rabbi Julius explains.
"One of the strongest images of the Jewish religion," the rabbi adds, "is a prayer that God 'spread over us your canopy of peace.'
"This word sukkah, or canopy, comes to symbolize bounty as well as the fragility and impermanence of the security of our material well-being, but at this time we're assured that there is, indeed, bounty, and we rejoice in that bounty. So while we acknowledge and accept the fragility of our material well-being, we also celebrate it. Next year, thank God, we will also celebrate that bounty again."
Area synagogues will have sukkot up until Sat., Oct. 2. For more information, call Congregation Sinai (Conservative), 264.8542; Congregation Am Echad (Orthodox), 267.2591; or in Los Gatos, Congregation Shir Hadash (Reform), 358.1751
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Campbell, California
