Conference taveng::bagels

    Actually, you have to have 2.5 walls for it to be considered an
    acceptable Succah. Granted a succah should be temporary in nature,
    but in the case of a sliding roof the covering of the succah is
    definitely temporary and that is what probably makes it ok.
    
    yoseff
    

    It's only the roof that matters; the walls can be made of anything,
    although there are minimum and maximum heights that are considered
    OK (probably varying by who you ask): I think 3 feet and 30 feet,
    or something like that.  Too small, and it isn't a temporary "dwelling"
    anymore, and too big and it isn't very "temporary".  I guess if
    it has less than 2 1/2 walls, it isn't enough of a building to be
    a "dwelling".   Some people don't consider the removable-roof trick
    OK because it isn't sufficently temporary, but I've run into plenty
    of references to it that say it is even OK if you close the roof
    when it rains and then open it again afterwards, it is still OK.
    
    The walls of ours are blue plastic tarps laced to a frame of 2x4s.
    We had a dinner party in it last night, which was fun, although
    we got a bit chilly when it got late, and eventually moved into
    the house.   The roof is cedar branches pulled through pieces of
    that prefab wooden grillwork stuff (comes in 4x8 sheets) - I thought
    that would keep the branches in place without "tying" them (which
    is a no-no), but actually every morning there have been several
    pieces on the picnic table inside; I don't have any trees that are
    anywhere near big enough to provide branches that would cover the
    top if there weren't a frame under it.  The community sukkah at
    our schul uses corn stalks over a wooden frame.

    I don't know the reason that a room with a removable roof is OK, but
    I know that it's accepted by both (some) Chasidim and (some) Misnagdim.
    The Bostoner Rebbe has a removable roof over his tisch (when I ate there
    last December it was leaking).  I have a cousin who's a very frum Misnagid
    who used to have a removable roof over his kitchen in Golders Green (he
    recently made aliyah, so he's now in a place where the weather is good
    on Sukkot).

If no one would take offense, may I ask about the significance of the Succoh?
What is its significance? Its origins? Why the restrictions on the height,
the temporary nature & why tying is a "no-no"?

If these have been discussed elsewhere, I'd appreciate a pointer.

Thank you
-parthi

Thanks for asking the question, Parthi. My own understanding of the succah is
very weak.

Succas is a Jewish holiday in which we are commanded to live in a Succah.
A succah is a temporary structure with a roof that is open to the sky. I don't
know all the rules for constructing a kosher Succah, but one rule is that the
roof must be covered with "shchach" which is vegetation that is no longer alive.
Usually, cut tree branches or corn stalks are used for this purpose. "Living"
in the Succah means you eat your meals there. The holiday lasts for a week.
If you take off from work (and not all do) you only take off the 1st and last
day.

The holiday is of biblical origin. The date corresponds with a full moon.
The Succah is decorated with harvest products (we strung popcorn and cranberries
to decorate ours. The succah itself is supposed to remind us of the temporary
dwellings the Israelites used while wandering 40 years in the desert.

There is a ceremony to be performed in the Succah involving something called
the Lulav and Etrog. The etrog is a citrus fruit that looks and tastes much
like a lemon. The lulav is made of materials from 3 variety of trees (the
Etrog is the 4th variety): palm, myrtle, and ???. The ceremony consists of
saying the appropriate blessing, holding the lulav and etrog together, and
shaking them in the 6 orthoganal directions. No one knows for sure what this
ceremony signifies although there seems to be plenty of theories.

The end of Succas is a holiday (Shemini Etzeret?) of whose significance I am
totally ignorant. It is one of those 2-day holidays everywhere except in
Israel where it is 1 day. The 2nd day (the 8th day of Succas) is also called
Simchat Torah because that is the day we complete the annual cycle of reading
the Torah (i.e. New Year for the Torah).

In the Jewish liturgy the succah is a symbol of peace. I never quite understood
this until this year when I tried building my first succah. It is very peaceful
sitting out there (cold too this year).

Dave

>The succah itself is supposed to remind us of the temporary
>dwellings the Israelites used while wandering 40 years in the desert.


I always thought the succah is a reproduction of the temporary
dwellings used during harvests, so that people can work from dawn to
dusk. My husband saw similar dwellings used by Cypriot farmers during
their harvests when he was in Cyprus 30 years ago - and they aren't
Jewish! The dwellings are purely practical - they save the time and
energy needed to get home which could better be spent on harvesting.

In the warm southern Mediterranean climate, you don't need a very
sturdy shelter!



Marge

>I always thought the succah is a reproduction of the temporary
>dwellings used during harvests, so that people can work from dawn to
>dusk. My husband saw similar dwellings used by Cypriot farmers during
>their harvests when he was in Cyprus 30 years ago - and they aren't
>Jewish! The dwellings are purely practical - they save the time and
>energy needed to get home which could better be spent on harvesting.
>
>In the warm southern Mediterranean climate, you don't need a very
>sturdy shelter!

You are right. I looked at my 3rd-grader's Hebrew school homework and their
text confirms this interpretation. Sukkot is clearly the "new year" of the
agricultural cycle.

I also found out that the tree variety I couldn't recall for the lulav is the
willow.

Still, Sukkot seems to be a dual purpose holiday, and I still don't understand
it very well. Are we supposed to be recalling that our ancestors were farmers?
(If so, why is this important?) Or are we supposed to be considering the fact
that the land belongs to G-d and the good weather G-d provides for the farmers
year after year is, in its own way, a miracle.

Dave

>Still, Sukkot seems to be a dual purpose holiday, and I still don't
>understand it very well. Are we supposed to be recalling that our
>ancestors were farmers? (If so, why is this important?) Or are we
>supposed to be considering the fact that the land belongs to G-d and
>the good weather G-d provides for the farmers year after year is, in
>its own way, a miracle.

Here I am again with a boringly prosaic explanation. 

Sukkot is mainly a harvest festival. When it was invented, it wasn't
"our ancestors" who were farmers - it was us!  Most male Jews must
have been farmers - or farm labourers - or herdsmen - right up until
the diaspora. A thanksgiving for the harvest was a very natural thing
to have - people's lives depended on the harvest - literally. A bad
harvest could mean scarcity - even famine. 

Still can, in many parts of the world.

    I'm not a "Talmud Hacham" but I think that you are taking this harvest
    idea for Succot a little too far.  The reasoning behind the
    construction and habitation of a sukkah is to commemorate the "booths"
    that Am Yisrael lived in during their wanderings in Sinai.
    
    David

Thank you all for the explanations.

Am I correct in saying in that the Succot is both a rememberance of the
life of the Israelites in the Sinai; and a celebration of the blessings of
God in the form of the fruits of the harvest season?

That is what I gather from the previous discussions!

Thank you
-parthi

    Re: .10
    
    Yes.  The major Jewish festivals usually are celebrations of several
    things.
    
    				Paul
    

    What do I do with the etrog now that the holiday is over with? 
    We never had one before since this is the first year we built a
    sukkah (and if it ever quits raining we will take the sukkah apart,
    before it falls over - it has developed an alarming tilt after the
    heavy rain storm Sunday night - we were afraid to eat in it after
    that but so far it has not completely fallen over).  I know that
    you can actually save it for the next year (so long as the little
    "button" on the blossom end is intact, it is still kosher), but
    I would rather get a fresh one then, since they come as a package
    deal with the lulav anyhow (which there is no way to save; it is
    already really wilted).  I know that some people make marmalade
    out of it, but does anyone have a recipe?

    We have a custom to take whole cloves and cover the entire esrog
    with them and use the resultant pomander as bissomim (spices)
    during havdalah.
    
    BTW.  You need more than one esrog to make a marmalade.
    
    
    Av

ad .0	I never heard of anyone having halachik objections to a 
	removable roof. I HAVE seen discussions whether it is
	allowed to replace the roof during yom tov (e.g. if it
	starts to rain) or remove it,but that is a different
	question altogether.

about the significance of the succah:

	the bible itself says that the commandment to dwell in 
	booths is because the Israelites dwelled in booths when
	they left Egypt. In the Talmud there is a debate between
	2 rabbis. One says: the verse refers to actual booths. the
	other rabbi says it means the "clouds of glory" which protected
	the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. Since the
	2nd opinion is obviously not intuitively correct many many
	MANY subsequent rabbis have eloquently elaborated as to what
	the second opinion is trying to suggest! You can figure that
	out for yourself, of course...

	the Talmud emphasizes the imperminence of the succah as opposed
	to a house ("dirat ara'i") and this suggests much moralistic
	(homiletic) teaching as well. Not hard to figure that out, also
	its relationship to reading the book of Ecclesiastes (Kohellet)
	on the "chag ha'asif" (harvest festival) -- when farmers might
	be feeling a bit too "full" of themselves and their wealth.