Sukkot is one of the most distinctive holidays in the Jewish calendar, when a temporary structure becomes the lively center of family life for seven days. The Torah commands: "You shall dwell in sukkot for seven days," in remembrance of the Clouds of Glory that surrounded the people of Israel as they left Egypt.

Beyond its halachic (Jewish legal) aspect, the holiday carries a deep spiritual and family dimension, stepping out of routine and comfort, and sitting under the shelter of God's presence beneath the open sky.

To ensure the sukkah is kosher and that one can properly fulfill the mitzvah, it's essential to know the main laws: how to build the sukkah, what qualifies as valid schach (the roof covering), when to recite the blessing, and what to do if rain begins to fall during the holiday meal.

Building a Kosher Sukkah

To fulfill the mitzvah properly, the sukkah must be sturdy enough to last all seven days, and its schach (roof covering) must provide more shade than sun. A sukkah that fails to meet these conditions is invalid from the outset.

It is permissible to place the schach—branches, bamboo, or similar materials—on metal poles. While some Ashkenazim avoid placing the schach directly on metal, there is no problem if the poles are fixed to the ground or walls. The schach may be tied to these poles with plastic zip ties or rope.

Sukkah walls may be made from any material, but fabric walls must be secured so they don't sway in the wind. Alternatively, one may install four horizontal bars or poles along the lower part of the walls, keeping them within 27 centimeters (about 10.5 inches) of the ground and at least one meter (about 3.3 feet) high.

It is forbidden to use schach that emits a bad smell or to build the sukkah near foul odors, such as a sewage pit. The sukkah should also not be so hot that it becomes uncomfortable to sit in.

If rain falls, it is permitted to cover the sukkah temporarily with a plastic sheet until the rain stops, but the blessing "leishev basukkah" (to dwell in the sukkah) should not be recited while the cover is in place, even if it's transparent. On Shabbat or the festival itself, the cover must be prepared beforehand and rolled up at the edge of the sukkah so that unrolling it does not constitute building.

A roof made entirely of wooden planks is not valid, though thin planks up to nine centimeters wide (about 3.5 inches) are acceptable. The schach should allow some sunlight through but not necessarily the sight of stars.

If using a permanent pergola or structure, something new must be added for the sake of the mitzvah—either by replacing even a small section of the roof with new schach or by adding new schach along the entire length. Each section of the roof should be adjusted individually.

The sukkah should not be dismantled before the end of Simchat Torah, and household items should only be removed from it on the eve of Simchat Torah, about two hours before the holiday begins.

Decorating the Sukkah

Sukkah decorations and fruits hung for adornment may not be used or removed throughout the holiday, including Simchat Torah. They may only be taken down if rain falls, and must be replaced immediately afterward. Decorations may not be removed on Shabbat or the festival itself. Fruits that fall during the holiday may not be eaten unless one made a condition before the holiday allowing it.

Dwelling in the Sukkah

In Israel, the mitzvah includes both eating and sleeping in the sukkah, even for short naps. Outside Israel, some communities refrain from sleeping in the sukkah due to cold weather or safety concerns.

All meals should ideally be eaten in the sukkah, though snacks are exempt. Those who choose to eat or drink nothing outside the sukkah are praiseworthy. The sukkah should serve as one's main dwelling, furnished with a table, chairs, and attractive items, but disrespectful activities should be avoided, and dirty dishes should not be left inside.

If rain begins during a meal, it is permitted to move indoors. Similarly, one sleeping in the sukkah may move inside if rain starts during the night. However, once the rain stops and dawn breaks, he should return to the sukkah.

A child who needs his mother at night is exempt from sleeping in the sukkah, but one who can sleep alone should be trained to do so. Anyone who suffers from discomfort, such as sleeplessness or mosquitoes, is exempt, though it is preferable to take preventive measures like using repellents.

Travelers during the holiday are still obligated to eat in a sukkah whenever possible.

No meals are eaten in the sukkah on Simchat Torah.

The blessing "Leishev Basukkah"

Anyone who enters the sukkah for eating, studying, or sleeping should recite the blessing "leishev basukkah." In the Diaspora, due to past dangers from antisemitism, it became customary to say the blessing only during meals. If one remains in the sukkah all day without leaving, the blessing does not need to be repeated for subsequent meals.

The blessing does not require literal sitting, since "dwelling" refers to living in the sukkah, as in the verse "And Jacob dwelled in the land of his father's sojournings."

Women are exempt from the mitzvah of sukkah but may still recite the blessing if they wish. The same applies to the Four Species (lulav, etrog, hadassim, and aravot).

Courtesy of Rabbi Chananel Zeini, head of the Torah Institute at the Or V'yishuah Hesder Yeshiva in Haifa.

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After Yom Kippur, we began building our sukkah in the yard under the large pergola. I say "began," even though it's been standing there, decorated, for two years now. The Sukkot before the war broke out, we celebrated the birth of our baby girl there. Our seventh child, but we celebrated her as though she were the first.

When the holiday ended, the joy drained away and fear began to gnaw at the walls. We took down the sukkah reluctantly. Since then, those same colorful paper chains have hung on the pergola. Not out of laziness. On October 7, I promised myself I wouldn't remove them until the war was over and the hostages came home. A year later, I added black chains. For the humor, if nothing else.

But really, paper chains can't possibly survive the rain, the sun, or my son swinging up to the roof. It shouldn't be possible. Then again, neither should being held hostage in Gaza's underground.

I've been looking at those chains for 730 days now, asking myself how we manage to endure in a sukkah, a fragile, temporary home. Maybe that's exactly what the sages meant when they ruled that a sukkah's roof must be thin enough to see the stars through it. Maybe they wanted to remind us that even in transience, there must be an opening to the heavens, a glimpse of hope that after the darkness, light will return.

Invisible pains

Over the past two years, I've been writing short stories about heroes of the war, and in the past year, about the widows left behind. I gathered their stories into a book called What Do You Know About Longing. One woman wrote me a message that pierced my heart: You write about women whose homes collapsed, but some of us lost our homes before they were ever built.

She's 30. She searched for love for years. Recently, she had found it. A love unlike anything she'd known. They met in strange, fateful ways, while he was on reserve duty and she was in a sensitive position herself. But the war consumed him. He wasn't killed or wounded, yet trauma took him over and he couldn't return to who he was. He left her, and she had to let go of her dream of building a home. "What's left for me to do?" she wrote. "I'm flying east, one-way ticket. Just so you know, some of us fell apart before we even began."

Her words ached. So many walk among us carrying invisible pain. No recognition, no heroic medals, no flag to wave. I wanted to talk to her for hours, to tell her that from all I've learned walking beside widows, I've come to understand something about holding on amid impermanence. You can never be sure you're standing on solid ground, that you're truly stable. You can't know if you'll rebuild your home, or if it will ever feel permanent again. But you can know that it's possible to hold all the pieces: to cry and still laugh, to feel dead and yet alive, to love one man and still open your heart to another.

If we had met, I would have told her about a widow from the Yom Kippur War I once interviewed. She sat shiva on her first wedding anniversary. Years later, she married her late husband's best friend. When I asked to photograph her holding a picture of her first husband, she hesitated. "I'm not sure I can," she said, glancing toward the room where her current husband was sitting. And I thought, maybe the process of breaking down and rebuilding can take 51 years. Maybe even forever.

After the book came out, she sent me a message: "Last Shabbat, I heard my daughter-in-law and my grandson's wife talking about love. I joined them, and suddenly there we were, three generations, each speaking about love and its meaning in our own way."

I bet that conversation told a love story across three dimensions, all with their ups and downs. Because love is revealed through our fractures, large and small. And life itself is about holding all these fragments, while surfing one wave after another.

A teacher and friend of mine, Rabbi Yemima Mizrachi, once told me that someone suffering from post-trauma can use that same inner mechanism for something positive, post-romance. If the mind can relive painful moments from the past in the present, then maybe it can also bring back moments of life and joy.

It may sound like a cliché, but something in me believes this perspective could be a lifeline: to look back, gather the colorful moments we had in 5785, and carry them with us into 5786. That would be wonderful, because not only individuals, but all of Israeli society, is yearning for a little post-romance, and for skies full of stars we can still see through a temporary roof.

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As Jews worldwide prepare for Sukkot, the weeklong harvest festival beginning on the evening of Wednesday, October 16, 2024, this comprehensive guide offers essential information on customs, prayer times, and travel recommendations. Whether you're an observant Jew or simply curious about the holiday, here's everything you need to know about celebrating Sukkot in Israel and beyond.

The first days of Sukkot, the third of Judaism's pilgrimage festivals, kick off on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, and conclude on Thursday, October 17. Outside of Israel, the holiday ends Friday, October 18. It rolls right into Shabbat, requiring Eruv Tavshilin.

The second days of Sukkot begin Wednesday, October 23, and conclude on Thursday, October 24. Outside of Israel, the holiday ends Friday, October 25. It rolls right into Shabbat, requiring Eruv Tavshilin.

Eruv Tavshilin: What is it and how to perform it?

When Yom Tov connects to Shabbat, one must perform an eruv tavshilin that allows preparation of food for Shabbat during the second day of Yom Tov. One should take challah bread and a prepared dish, say the blessing, and thus, it is permissible to cook on Yom Tov for Shabbat.

It's important to know that eruv tavshilin permits cooking from the second day of Yom Tov for Shabbat, but not from the first day of Yom Tov to the second. It is forbidden to cook or set the table for the second evening meal before the end of the first day, that is, Thursday evening, a minute or two before the time corresponding to the end of the second day of Yom Tov on Friday.

Lighting Shabbat and Yom Tov candles

Shabbat and Yom Tov candles need to be prepared in advance, and one should ensure that memorial candles or other candles will burn for the entire required time so that we can transfer fire from existing fire during the holiday and Shabbat.

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1.

We haven't even had time to bid farewell to our sukkahs and Simchat Torah is already upon us. It is difficult to find a parallel to Simchat Torah in other cultures. It is not just a religious holiday, but a holiday in honor of the intellect, the very act of studying, the Torah, and everything that derives from it: customs and Halacha, constitution and law, morality and philosophy, history and culture, and more. The joy in the Book determines our relationship to it, even before we engage in studying it. In the thousands of years we have existed as a people, we have built on the foundation of the Torah a tremendous textual and intellectual skyscraper, the likes of which no nation has bequeathed its descendants. Each generation donated a room or a whole floor and populated it with books and ideas. And every one of us can, if we so wish, visit every floor of this magnificent building and draw from the fountain of generations.

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As ambassador to Italy, I used to visit the various synagogues in Rome regularly. As is the custom of the exiles, in Italy Simchat Torah is celebrated as a two-day holiday. On the first day, the holiday is celebrated as written in the Torah: "On the eighth day (of Sukkot) you shall have a gathering..." But it is only on the second day of Simchat Torah that they would finish the annual Torah reading cycle as in Israel. My children had remained in Israel and the coronavirus was in full swing. On the eve of the holiday, I called home and asked my daughter Darya, who, at the time was eight-and-a-half years old, if she would like to join me for the end of the Torah cycle.

Video: Thousands attend Sukkot 'Priestly Blessings' at Jerusalem's Western Wall / Credit: Reuters

2.

She replied enthusiastically that she would love to and together we read the verses of Torah portion and I explained to her the meaning of words that were difficult for her to understand. For children, there is no essential difference between the linguistic registers; the only difference is that one is vernacular and the other is literary. We noticed in the last chapter of the Torah that the important thing for Moses before his death was to see the Land to which he had led his people but would not enter.  "Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land …. And the Lord said to him, 'This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will assign it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there." How sad it is that Moses did not enter the Land he dreamed of, how sad it is for a leader not to complete his mission. But how important it is to learn from them that it is not our duty to finish the work, but neither are we at liberty to neglect it, because each generation carries, in its own way, the march of existence of the People.

"So, Moses the servant of the Lord died there… and [the Lord] buried… and no one knows his burial place to this day." So, do you understand, my child, what grace was bestowed upon us when Moses' grave was hidden from us? Otherwise, we would have become a religion based around a holy tomb and the People would have made pilgrimage to Moses' tomb; with time his stature would have grown until he had transcended mere flesh and blood. But the Torah of Moses is greater than Mosemessenger the idea is greater than the man who was its messengers and therefore it is eternal.

"Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the Israelites heeded him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses." Despite the pain, Moses made sure he had a successor, and that the People of Israel would accept Joshua son of Nun as their leader. Moses laid his hands upon Joshua; in other words, he entrusted Joshua with his authority. A people accustomed from its very dawn to a leader who took care of them like a father would feel orphaned in his passing and therefore it is important to make sure there is a worthy successor.

3.

These are the last verses of the Torah: "Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses—whom the Lord singled out, face to face, for the various signs and portents that the Lord sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel." And then spontaneously we both said to each other over the phone "Hazak, hazak, ve-nithazek" [a Hebrew phrase meaning "be strong, be strong and may we be strengthened" that is said on completion of each of the Five Books of Moses).

The prophecy of Moses is different from the other prophecies. The image employed in the Torah is that of a close and intimate relationship between Moses and his God (the Sages and commentators expanded, but right now I am studying this with my daughter). What was special about Moses, was it the signs and wonders shown against Egypt and Pharaoh? All right. I suggested reading Rashi's final commentary on the Torah: "Before the eyes of all of Israel – This refers to the fact that his heart inspired him to shatter the Tablets before their eyes, as it is said, '(Thereupon I gripped the two Tablets and flung them away with both my hands) And I broke them before your eyes.' (In other words, this was a spontaneous act by Moses), and the opinion of the Holy One, blessed be He, regarding this action agreed with his opinion, as it is stated that God said of the Tablets, "Which you have broken," [which implies] "May your strength be fitting [well done!] because you have broken them."

The final thing that Rashi wanted to stress at the end of the Torah was the act of breaking the Tablets after seeing the golden calf. Moses was also an educator. He understood that if he gave the people the Tablets despite what they had done, they may have replaced the golden calf and worshiped the tablets because they were the work of God. By breaking them, he taught the people that it is not the physical tablets that matter – important as they may be – but the words and ideas engraved upon the Tablets. As with the story of the burial of Moses, it is not man who matters, and certainly not the stones of the Tablets, but ideas that transcend time and remain even after a person dies and the stones have crumbled.

4.

And then we read from Genesis and rushed on to the Haphtarah. Dad, what's a haphtarah? When a person dies, we say he has passed on and we bid him farewell. When we finish reading from the Torah portion, we bid it farewell by reading a similar portion from the Prophets known as the Haftarah [which comes from the same Hebrew root as niftar – deceased]. "After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, God said to Joshua son of Nun… 'My servant Moses is dead. Prepare to cross the Jordan, together with alltheses People, into the Land that I am giving to the Israelites. Every spot on which your foot treads I give to you, as I promised Moses…As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. Be strong and resolute."

Joshua steps into big shoes, so God strengthens him and instills in him confidence that he will succeed in the great task of bringing the People into the Land and establishing a kingdom there. You see, my daughter, even great people need reinforcement and encouragement, even a mighty sea needs strong rocks to crash on.

5.

Then my daughter Darya remembered that while she was still in kindergarten, when we read the weekly Torah portion together, she asked when we would study the book of Joshua, and maybe it was time because she was very curious to get to know the man who replaced Moses. So, we decided to study the whole book. The next day she called me in Rome and said she had eaten too many potatoes and wasn't feeling well; perhaps, she asked, we could read the second chapter of the Book of Joshua together, until her stomach settled. And so, thanks to the potatoes, we learned the chapter about the spies, about Rahab in Jericho, and the scarlet cord in her window. Darya read aloud the last verse of the chapter: "And they said to Joshua: 'God has delivered the whole land into our power; in fact, all the inhabitants of the land are quaking before us'."

And this conversation with my daughter was far dearer and precious to me than any conversation with the country's nobles and its great leaders: A father and his daughter studying Torah, he in Rome, and she in Rehovot, Israel, oblivious to the bustle of the world knocking at their door.

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Fifty Thousand Jewish worshippers gathered at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Monday to attend the special Priestly Blessing prayer during the holiday of Sukkot, the Western Wall heritage foundation said in a statement.

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Draped with prayer shawls over their heads and hands, the priests, known in Hebrew as "Cohanim", chanted the blessing, which begins with: "May the Lord bless you and keep you."

Video: Thousands attend Sukkot 'Priestly Blessings' at Jerusalem's Western Wall / Credit: Reuters

Ultra-Orthodox Jews waved the four species, palm frond, citron, myrtle, and willow branches between the ceremony for the blessings of the priest.

Mass Priestly Blessings at the Western Wall are held during the Jewish holidays of Passover and Sukkot.

The Western Wall abuts the sacred compound known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa compound.

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As part of an annual tradition, members of Akim Ramat Gan-Givatayim on Thursday decorated the UK's ambassador's sukkah.

The event had the members arrive at the residence of Ambassador Simon Walters in Givatayim, helping him with the symbolic celebration of the Jewish festival of Sukkot by putting on the final touches for the embassy's sukkah.

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Akim defines itself as the "Israeli national organization for people with intellectual disabilities and their families, operating as a person-centered organization."

The British Embassy has been collaborating with Akim for over a decade in this tradition, along with friends, in an effort to have a spectacular and welcoming sukkah at the residence.

Walters said, "This tradition represents the enduring bond between the UK and Israel. It also promotes values such as tolerance, diversity, and inclusion, which we strongly support and believe in."

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Sukkot is one of the most beloved holidays in Israel and at the Ramat Gan Safari, no one misses out on the holiday fun, not even the animals.

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Safari caretakers have built special sukkahs for the animals in honor of the celebrations. The fat sand rat received a sukkah with a roof made of saltbushes, a treat it loves. The tapirs' and porcupines' sukkahs have also been decorated with edible treats.

Video: Ramat Gan Safari

In addition to marking the holidays, the decorations and treats bring excitement into the animals' lives and help them stay active as they roam around the structure to find their treats, sharpening their senses and instincts.

Visitors at the safari will have plenty of activities to enjoy in addition to observing animals eating, socializing, being active or resting as they do in their natural habitats. In addition, there are guided tours and animal feeding sessions on offer. The Safari is home to some 1,600 animals from all over the world and is home to African and Asian elephants, giraffes, orangutans, Sumatran tigers, gorillas and more.

Make sure to visit the safari's "Magical creatures of Mozambique" exhibition, with includes eight gigantic pop-up books, open for one more week.

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Thousands of worshippers gathered at the Western Wall on Wednesday morning for the traditional Priestly Blessing. The first was scheduled for 9:15 a.m., with a second to follow at 10:15.

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Participants in the ceremony included Israel's Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef, as well as Rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinovitch.

Security and religious authorities warned ahead of the blessing that if the Western Wall plaza became too crowded, entrance to both the Old City and the Western Wall itself would be barred. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has appealed to the public not to attend the blessing on both Wednesday and Thursday, to allow as many people as possible to take part in the ceremony.

As the festival of Sukkot begins, the Jerusalem District Police were on alert, with hundreds of police officers, Border Police, and police volunteers fanned out across the city. Multiple security checkpoints have been set up at the entrances to the Western Wall area in an attempt to handle the expected crowds.

The public has been asked not to drive their personal vehicles to the Old City during Sukkot. Transportation options include buses, shuttles, and the city's light rail. Visitors are urged to follow police instructions as well as COVID regulations, including wearing masks at gatherings or prayer ceremonies.

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Some people take the commandment to beautify a mitzvah very seriously indeed, especially when it comes to their sukkah.

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It's been nearly three decades since Len Upin took brush in hand and, using acrylics, painted a huge tree on the canvas walls of his brand-new sukkah, inviting his three children to join in the fun.

As the years grew on and then the decades, and the sukkah grew and shrunk depending on the number of family and friends expected, there were giant flowers added, reflecting those growing in the family's Chicago-area garden. "Over the years, the rain and the sun have faded them," says Upin, an artist and retired art teacher. "But we still have the photos to remind us how they were." Every year when it goes up − now that the kids are grown and living in other towns − Upin and his wife Laura "have it to bring back a lot of happy memories."

Someone who's been collecting photos of sukkahs for the last 15 years is Aaron Ginsburg. "Sukkahs of the World" was born when Ginsburg noticed the wide variety of specimens dotting his Sharon, Mass., neighborhood and began photographing them. Soon he was receiving sukkah photos from around the world and posting them on his website, including one from Shanghai dwarfed by surrounding skyscrapers and a quaint Parisian one."After all these years, I'm still amazed at the sheer variety," says Ginsburg.

For sheer variety, it would be hard to surpass the mind-bending sukkah specimens featured in the competition held in 2013 in New York's Union Square  −the documentary Sukkah City tells the story of the competition and spotlights the winners (see trailer).

The competition was organized by writer Joshua Foer to inspire architects and designers to be playful with the structures while adhering strictly to their biblical requirements governing dimensions, roof materials and more. For the full list of guidelines, look no further than the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law, where they were set down back in 1563. These include a minimum of three walls, each one at least 28 inches long and at least 40 inches high, while no more than nine inches above the ground. The roof (to be made of natural materials like branches, palm fronds, corn stalks or bamboo) must be dense enough to create more shade than sun, but loose enough to be able to see the stars and feel the rain. In addition, nothing can overhang the sukkah; it must be completely open to the sky and the elements.

But unlike the professional contestants, most busy moderns don't have the time or the construction skills to devote to perfection, which is why sukkah-kit businesses like the Sukkah Project have sprung up over the last few decades.

Last year during the peak of COVID-19 restrictions, the project saw a sharp downturn in institutional-sized ones for universities and shuls, says owner Abram Herman. Instead, they experienced an uptick in family-sized ones (models start at $368 for a 6' x 8' four-seater.) "If you can't get to the one at your synagogue's sukkah anymore, you need one of your own," says Herman. But this year, he reports, both the family and institutional ones are in high demand, keeping the order center in Grand Junction, Colo., hopping this time of year.

And, if those sales are up then the demand for lulav (long leaves of palm, willow and myrtle bound together within a closed palm frond) and etrog (the citrus fruit specific to the holiday) can't be far behind. These sets, used for blessings in the sukkah, start at $30 but more typically go for $50 or more through synagogues, Judaica shops and online.

Guests both heavenly and human

Besides a place of blessing, the sukkah was designed to be truly lived in, including working or doing homework, sleeping, and, of course, eating (and for hosting friends and family). Though coronavirus concerns are likely to keep most crowds to a minimum, there are seven guests who (variant or no variant) are bound to show up in every sukkah around the globe.

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In order of appearance: Abraham on the first night, then Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and on the seventh and final night King David, each of these ushpizin, or "guests" bringing his own special blessing to the sukkah and all those found inside. Note: Many also believe these august souls' wives accompany them on their visits.

But what exactly should hosts serve the guests, at least the human ones?

Joan Nathan, the author of many classic Jewish cookbooks, including King Solomon's Table, A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World, is a great believer in keeping Sukkot menus "festive but easy." One main dish, possibly a casserole with a salad and fruit for dessert, "is really all you need," says Nathan. Or try one of her sukkah favorites: pesto and pasta with stir-fried cherry tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. "And my best recommendation," she adds, "is when people ask if they can bring anything, always, always say 'yes.' Even if it's just a salad, it's one less thing for you to have to think about."But what if all this holiday joy is outside the reach of especially older people who can't get out and those hesitant in pandemic times to congregate in a relatively enclosed space?

Put your whole self in …

That's where the Chabad sukkah mobiles come into play. "Chabad has been sending around sukkah mobiles since time immemorial," laughs Rabbi Dov Drizin over at the Valley Chabad in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. (He recalls his own father, as a Chabad rabbi in Northern California, building one). "But last year with COVID, we all took it up a notch. If they can't come to us for the mitzvah, we take it to them."

So, instead of parking the portable sukkah (it's often built on the back of a rented pick-up truck or even a tricycle-type vehicle, the pedi-sukkah) in a public place and seeing who shows up to do the mitzvah of sitting and eating (bring on the cookies), and saying the blessings over the lulav and etrog, last year the rabbi and his family began driving it to families around the area. And it's a practice they plan to continue this Sukkot.

"The sukkah is the one mitzvah you do with your whole body − with your clothes on," says Drizin (versus a mikvah, which is a full-body mitzvah sans clothing). "But you don't have to get dressed up in anything fancy; come as you are," he adds. "Just being inside is like a huge hug from G-d."

Because wherever it is, as beautiful as a sukkah can be, it's only when it's occupied does this temporary dwelling fashioned of wood and canvas, PC piping or steel tubing truly become a sukkah, says Ginsburg. "The sukkah is about the people inside it feeling the joy of the holiday," he says. "That's the real way of beautifying this mitzvah."

Tips:

Meet Some Sukkah Guests From Hell
To get in the Sukkot mood, enjoy the 2004 classic film Ushpizin, the story of two ex-cons moving in on a down-on-their-luck observant couple (played by real-life spouses Shuli and Michal Rand), turning their lives upside down in the process.

Stock Up on Construction Paper
Have your kids make sukkah decorations such as stringed popcorn, drawings, paper chains and more to share with neighbors and friends.

Get Hopping
Organize your own sukkah hop. Note: Though the younger set will enjoy assorted sweets, adult hops typically feature movable meals (hors d'oeuvres, soup, salads, entree and dessert), each course served in a different sukkah. And this year, BYOM (bring your own mask).

Making the Holiday Count
Conduct a neighborhood sukkah count with your children or grandchildren. Not finding many nearby? Try traveling to an area with more specimens to count.

Open Your Heart … and Your Hand
Sukkot is a traditional time to give tzedakah ("charity") to those in need. This is especially important during these times and the ongoing pandemic, when we may not have the mitzvah of feeding the poor or lonely in our own sukkah.

Watch Them Grow
Many families have the tradition of measuring their children each Sukkot, marking their progress on a corner beam of their sukkah.

Drink Your Etrog
Planning to find yourself in Jerusalem over the holiday? Not to be missed is the stand in the Machane Yehuda shuk established by third-generation produce guy Uzi-Eli Chezi, aka "the Etrog Man," who's been juicing this Vitamin-C-packed citrus for a quarter-century. (Note: The flavor also comes in the form of liqueur, citron-flavored, widely available online).

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Dozens of sets of the Four Species – etrog, palm, myrtle, and willow – traditionally used for prayers during the festival of Sukkot have recently been transferred to the few Jews still living in Arab countries like Syria and Iraq.

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The Yad L'Achim organization took care to organize the shipments, which were transferred in a secret operation.

Amir, the Yad L'Achim official responsible for overseeing the organization's operations, explained this week that the Four Species sets were in transit to "various countries."

Video: Yad L'Achim/Yahaduton

According to the outreach group, sets have also been supplied to Jewish women who married Arab Israeli men in Israel, and their children.

In recent years, Yad L'Achim has been working to bring Jews living in Arab countries and Arabic-speaking Jews elsewhere in the world closer together. Arabic-speaking Jews in Palestinian refugee camps, whose mothers are Jewish, have also reportedly reached out to the group and asked for help strengthening their Jewish identities.

Yad L'Achim offers them information about Judaism and support in the form of Torah lessons by telephone and shipments of items for Jewish holidays.

Increased outreach to Arabic-speaking Jews has led to a corresponding rise in demand for Jewish information in Arabic, such as guidance on various issues of Jewish law. In response, Yad L'Achim has begun cooperating with the YouTube channel Yahduton, which has produced dozens of outreach videos on Jewish subjects.

As part of the initiatives, actors who speak Arabic have been recruited to help make a video titled "How Do You Build a Sukkah?" The video is expected to reach Arabic-speaking Jews and make the holiday more accessible for them.

"There are dozens more Jewish outreach videos on the horizon," Yad L'Achim promised. "It excites us every time to discover the strong desire among Jews who reach out to us from places we never imagined."

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The post Secret operation ensures few remaining Jews in Syria, Iraq can celebrate Sukkot appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.