The Choosing: A Rabbi's Journey from Silent Nights to High Holy Days

5. Sukkot

5 Sukkot Wild Turkey Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of the Eternal seven days: a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day. On the first day you shall take the product of citron trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Eternal your God seven days. You shall observe it as a festival of the Eternal for seven days in the year; you shall observe it in the seventh month as a law for all time, throughout the ages. You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I the Eternal your God. —Leviticus 23:39–43 The Search for Skhakh: To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before The morning after my first Yom Kippur in Jerusalem, I woke up transformed, ready to begin my life anew. After a day full of services and conversations that went late into the night, I was bleary-eyed but inspired. I reached over to turn on my tape player and begin my morning ritual. The familiar sounds of “O Mio Babbino Caro” filled the room as I enjoyed a Middle Eastern, Merchant Ivory moment. I jumped out of bed ready to greet the new day, singing the 54 Wild Turkey 55 libretto as if the world was my shower. I was thousands of miles away from everything I knew. Anything felt possible, and I had a room with a view. Over the music, I heard a faint rustling in the palm canopy outside my bedroom window. Perhaps it was the first warm rain of the season hitting the leaves, or the sounds of birds enjoying the pendulous date clusters hanging from the tree-top. Propelled by a heady combination of low blood sugar and an inflated sense of romantic grandeur, I twirled over to the windows. Flinging them wide, I half-expected to feast my eyes on my own private Duomo. The soprano Kiri Te Kanawa reached her crescendo, and I found myself eyelevel with a hirsute Israeli man perched in the tree, hacking at the branches with a machete. I became acutely aware that I was wearing only a tank top and Superman Underoos. “Skhakh, skhakh!” the man grumbled dismissively, shooing me away with his free hand as he continued to chop the palm fronds off the tree. In true Israeli fashion, he went about his business, ignoring me completely. It was perfectly normal to begin the day after Yom Kippur foraging for skhakh, the branches, leaves, and other foliage needed for the upcoming holiday of Sukkot. The holiday takes its name from the sukkah, a temporary dwelling built for the week-long holiday ; skhakh provides a permeable roof for this provisional structure. Religious requirements for foliage aside, this was not how I expected to begin my day. The stark reality remained: my palm tree, a thing of beauty and my only source of privacy, had just been given a mullet. I was in my underwear, and there was a strange man with a weapon outside my window who refused to leave. The thin butch veneer I had honed through college vanished in an instant, and I screamed at a volume that made my New York City heritage proud. Truly this was a scream that said “I am capable of anything and may be armed with Mace”—and with that I got his attention. 56 Sukkot He started screaming almost as loudly as I. He dropped his machete, skittered down the tree, collected the palm fronds, and fled. I closed the window, ran into my bathroom, and assumed the fetal position. This was not the idyllic spiritual rebirth I had imagined. It was, however, my introduction to Sukkot in Jerusalem. The man outside my window had been doing the right thing. In Judaism, the thing to do after Yom Kippur is not to prolong your spiritual reflection; rather, it is to get ready for the next holiday, Sukkot. The first mitzvah you are supposed to do after Yom Kippur is to begin to build your sukkah...