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Sukkah of the Soul

What would you take inside?

by
The Editors
September 22, 2010
(our local sukkah at night by Bill Rogers; some rights reserved.)
(our local sukkah at night by Bill Rogers; some rights reserved.)

To celebrate Sukkot, Tablet Magazine asked several folks what “must-haves” they would take with them into a sukkah. Here are some of the replies.

Fureigh, guitarist in The Shondes.

1. My guitar—a few days is a long time to go without practicing!

2. My journal and a pen.

3. A copy of The Urban Homestead, to aid in thinking more about ways to bridge the gap between this holiday and my regular life.

4. The sleeping bag I use on tour.

5. Earplugs—I’m still in Brooklyn, after all.

Laurel Snyder, author of several books, including Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher.

What matters most to me on Sukkot is that I want it to feel like a real harvest. So what I need to have in my sukkah is whatever I feel I’ve been harvesting that year. In Iowa, when I knew lots of musicians and poets, I remember having jazz in the sukkah, and writer-friends, and that was a harvest. Last year, I drove 12 hours with my toddler-sons so they could build their first sukkah with their grandfather, and that was a harvest. This year, I’m doing a sukkah with members of my new (and first) havurah, and that feels like a harvest, too. I guess my sukkah is generally a good peek into what I’m prioritizing in my life.

From the editors of Tablet Magazine.