Succah dining Your cup of tea?
BRING IT ON JENNIFER LIPMAN
IT’S NOT fun, obviously. Shivering away, below a ceiling of browning leaves and rotting pomegranates, sitting on uncomfortable folding chairs, painfully aware that your toasty house is just inches away and that you are dining in a glorified shed in a notional and rather nonsensical tribute to your biblical ancestors.
Succot is the final sprint in the marathon of autumnal festivals; the dregs of the yomtov glass. After the hours of praying in Rosh Hashanah, and the hollow hunger of Yom Kippur, Succot is ostensibly the reward, the easy bit. That is, if easy involved building a hut in your garden, and wondering if those spots of rain on your stuffed cabbage are about to turn into a downpour.
As a permanently cold person — the kind who wears a scarf indoors in August and still complains she’s freezing — I should loathe Succot and the requirement to chow down in a temporary dwelling. It’s a faff; if the weather is balmy then you’re sharing the schach with the wasps; if not, and you’re eating outside as Jack Frost lurks. Perhaps if we Jews were all in Israel, this bizarre custom would make more sense.
Yet, I love eating in the succah —whether it’s my father’s complex, weatherbeaten contraption, or a popup tent more suited to the instant gratification generation.
There’s something wonderful about the ancient children’s artwork on the walls and the spraypainted conkers above, or the hanging plastic fruit that surely serve no other useful purpose. I love snuggling up close because the succah was built for when your family numbered in single figures only, and wrapping up in boots and thick coats just to travel a few feet.
I even love the memory of getting locked out in my sister’s succah one chilly October night, and trying to work out if her threeyear-old son could let us back in.
I can’t understand people who just make kiddush in the succah then rush back indoors, or who install a sliding roof in the kitchen as a nod to tradition. Because it isn’t supposed to be fun. Complaining about eating in the succah is as much a part of Succot as the lulav and etrog; like so much of Judaism, it’s about worthy suffering.
Our ancestors struggled in bondage, later they faced pogroms and worse. Eating in our suburban gardens — with portable heaters and hot soup — really isn’t that bad by comparison.
I love snuggling up close, wrapping up in boots and thick coats