Succah Up Early

Yesterday one of our sons came by to help my husband put up the succah. First I treated him to a nice meal, soup, chicken and all the trimmings. Then they got to work.

As you probably notice, the decorations sort of survived the year in the storage room. So we really don't have too much else to do.

I even cleaned the plastic chairs, since we had a pre-Yom Kippur Shiur, class, in the house afterwards. And then I gave the leftover cake and some watermelon to the lovely young yeshiva student who taught us.

Baruch Hashem, thank Gd...

Succot! Enjoy ושמחת בחגך

Tonight we celebrate the weekly Succot Holiday. Enjoy!

As you can see, I managed to decorate our succah. Some of the decorations are very old, but most are from Jewish Calendars sent by various charities. I just cut out the pictures and put them up with thumbtacks. I also use New Years- Rosh Hashana Cards people have sent us. That makes decorating the succah very easy and low cost, free is about as cheap as you can get other than decorated succah fabric/walls.

Our succah is wood, but actually, the walls of our merpeset,  balcony/terrace go halfway up, so the wood, pergola and wall pieces don't start from the floor. Our sons came over the other night to help my husband get it all up, including the s'chach, special reusable roof.

This year we bought a new supply of plastic chairs, and we're looking forward to having a few guests. What are your plans?

Succah Up, But Needs Decorators

B"H, my wonderful sons came by after work and within minutes had the succah up. Luckily my husband had found all the boards beforehand.

Now, I'm stuck with the job of decorating. We have a box of decorations. I just have to get inspired to put some up. B"H some stayed up from last year.

PS Did you notice that we bought new Keter plastic chairs? Most of our old ones either broke or disappeared.

Succah 5778 is UP!!

Our son came by last night on his way home from work to help my husband. He's the same son who built the new pergola a few years ago, when our old one was close to collapse.

PS The decorations are from last year. Somehow they survived well on the walls in our storage room under the house. That saves us from the chore of decorating...

Reflecting on This Succot

This year during Succot I've been rather distracted by other things going on, and we haven't had many guests at all.

I was definitely one of those expecting winter weather this Succot considering how late in the solar year, but summer has been very slowly fading, and the rain hasn't fallen.  Even though it's chilly at night and early morning, the weather is dry and hot during the day.

This Succot I really didn't do anything very special besides going down to Shiloh Hakeduam, Tel Shiloh and doing my sales job in Yafiz. The highlight was a family get-together and then spending Shabbat with our daughter and her family in Ofra.

I haven't bought any citrus fruit yet, because they don't get sweet until the rains fall. Artifical irrigation does not provide the same exact nutrients and flavors to the fruits and vegetables as rain. Apparently not all water is the same.

This is the holiday of transition, which is why we are supposed to live in our succah. And I'm also in transmission mode. More to follow.

Succot at the Kotel

Yesterday, as I wrote last night, A Promise is a Promise!, I went to the Kotel. Here are a few of the photos I took. One thing I must say is that the atmosphere in the large ladies section was very nice and peaceful and polite. I'm not a "fan" of the Kotel. I feel much more connected to Gd when at Tel Shiloh, and I plan on going up to Har HaBayit again, Gd willing in the future. But due to the outrageous ban on Jewish Prayer there, it isn't all that fulfilling to go up. 

On Succot I always get sentimental when I see the Kotel's succah, because we used to take the kids for a succah "picnic" every year when they were young. I was sorry to see that there is no longer one giant succah. There are now two in a different location.

I walked my usual route down to the Kotel from Jaffa Gate. It's the way I've been walking since I was a student at Machon Greenberg in 1969.