Even though I was only a child, after all these years, the memory is still etched into my mind, into my very essence… 

I was four years old at the time, living in Yonkers, NY, where I attended our Temple’s nursery school. It was the time of Sukkot but the sukkah was in the sanctuary on the bimah. I still wonder today, why it wasn’t built outside but I suppose that is just how things were done there.  

Our teacher had us line up in front of the side stairs going up to the bimah. One by one we each had a turn to stand inside the sukkah. When it was my turn, as I looked above to see the hanging fruits, I was embraced and experienced a Joy and Love that I still can’t put into words to this day. In my child’s mind, it was the invisible, magical lady of the sukkah who hugged me.

When our son was three years old and came home from his pre-school saying his friend’s daddy built a sukkah, that was all Rabbi David needed to hear. And so began our yearly tradition of building a sukkah in our backyard. In those days, living up north in New Jersey,  the Autumn weather was beautiful and we would host a yearly party for which we became famous. 

But each night I would sit quietly inside the sukkah and again experience the Sacred Presence that embraced me as a child. It would renew me, fill me with peace and joy! It is a tradition that I still follow after all these years. 

I suppose the rabbis knew what they were doing when they instituted that it is a mitzvah to have people visit a sukkah one builds.  For they too can be infused with the Healing, the Renewal, the Joy  that being underneath the sukkah can bring.  What a  beautiful gift after the intense inner work of the High Holy Days! 

Love, Cantor Lee

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