The coolest sukkah in the world might be in the lobby of The Waldorf Astoria hotel in Jerusalem. If you happen to be in Jerusalem on Sukkos and you’d like to take your meals in world-class style, you can just go to the lobby on the ground floor, take your seat at an assigned table, and marvel at the extravagant and luxurious indoor-outdoor sukkah, exquisitely designed to look like an ancient vineyard.
It’s actually the world’s largest “indoor” sukkah, and it’s festooned with all kinds of greenery and gorgeous flower displays. Located in the middle of the hotel’s lobby, the sukkah came to fruition thanks to a team of engineers and designers who designed a sliding glass rooftop that creates an outdoorsy feel right in the middle of the atrium. The ceiling is decorated with traditional schach, allowing the guests to sit beneath the stars of the majestic Jerusalem skies as they dine in a climate-controlled setting.
Unfortunately, Israel is a challenge this year, not necessarily because of the almost one-year-old war with Hamas and the daily exchange of fire with Hezbollah, but because of the unpredictable airline schedule that factors in whether you are flying into Israel or returning back home.
After casual observation, it seems to me that many more people are heading to Israel in particular this year because now more than ever, they correctly feel it is time to be together with our people in the land of our national destiny.
Some who are headed to Israel are going for the chag because their children and grandchildren are there. And of course, as we know, the eyes of Hashem are watching over Israel all day and all night, every day of the year.
That said, the question we are dealing with this year (as with all years) is what kind of sukkah are we going to be sitting in and taking our meals in as the chag makes its way in our direction as the days go by?
The fact of the sukkah matter is that our traditional sukkahs have come a long way over the years. I cannot resist telling you what my father-in-law once told me about the few Sukkos yom tovim he and his Yeshiva spent in Siberia during World War II.
Obviously, they didn’t have the kind of sukkah they wanted. After all, they were on the run from the Nazis in Poland while being protected by the Russians in the sub-zero temperatures of Siberia. But he told me there were certain trees that grow there with thick trunks, their branches all intertwined between the trees, and all it took was a little imagination and suddenly you felt as if you were sitting in a magnificent sukkah.
We’ve come a long way since then regardless of the circumstances in the world today that are making an effort to drag us back down to the tragic days of yesteryear.
Back some decades ago, before sukkah sales became the raging industry they are today, there was very little style or uniformity in sukkah construction. For example, my family’s first sukkah, which was built in our backyard in Brooklyn, was made out of a collection of old doors. That’s right, they were just doors that were hammered and nailed together to form the walls of the sukkah.
Years later, as I have described in this column in the past, my dad bought these heavy lumber sukkahs that required real muscle to transport from the garage in the back of our house where it was stored all year to its latter location on the front porch, which seemed like, if nothing else, a fittingly elevated location.
We were three young boys and one girl back then, and none of us had the knowhow or acumen to put this sukkah (or anything else for that matter) together.
As we got a little older, we made an effort, but at the end of the process, my father always had to engage a professional carpenter who had the knowledge and acumen on how to move those heavy doors from the garage up the stairs to our front porch, and then make sure the structure was sound enough to last throughout the chag. No easy feat.
I vaguely recall that my dad told the carpenter not to bother with the wood slats that served as the schach because we boys could do that. The issue that needed to be addressed at that point was which one of us was actually going to do the job.
I think we all took turns doing at least part of placing those thin boards together until we mishandled one and got the inevitable splinter in one of our fingers, which meant we were automatically disabled and one of the other kids had to take over.
Our neighbors on both sides of our house in Crown Heights had very different but certainly interesting sukkahs. On the right side was Dr. Hyman Frank, a well-known doctor with family here in the Five Towns, who had a sukkah with colorful glass panels that comprised its walls. When the sun shone through them or the lights were on at night, it was a magnificent sight to behold. In fact, it was something we looked forward to seeing all year.
On the other side of the house was the sukkah of Rabbi Menashe Levertov. He also has family today in the Five Towns. His wife and my mother were good friends. Rabbi Levertov was saved from being murdered by the Nazis by Oskar Schindler. If you read Schindler’s List or saw the movie which was later produced, you could identify Rabbi Levertov as “Schindler’s Rabbi.”
They also had a different, more colorful sukkah than ours. Their sukkah was made of colorful plexiglass panels that looked like they were easier and lighter to handle than our thick lumberyard type walls. In later years, I observed that these were the same types of panels they used as a mechitzah around swimming pools in many bungalow colonies in the Catskills.
Rabbi Levertov was taken out to be shot by the local Nazi commandant of the area in Krakow where he was confined. As he was about to be murdered, a dog began to bark, distracting the Nazi, who turned his attention to the dog and shot it dead.
Another time, the Nazis intended to kill the rabbi and the Commandant’s gun jammed and he just gave up and walked away. That was certainly a life-saving miracle. After the war, Rabbi Levertov managed to make it to New York where he remarried and had two children. He was able to restart his life.
In the late 1960s on a rainy Friday night, Rabbi Levertov was walking home from the Empire Boulevard Shtiebel (which is still there today) when he was run down by a speeding car and lost his life.
I was a young boy when it happened, but I still recall the sight of his two teary-eyed daughters on the porch of their home that Shabbos morning. Thinking now about that combination of events more than a half century later, I still cannot properly grasp how miraculously lucky he was to escape death by the Nazis, who routinely killed millions, only to be struck dead by a drunk driver on a Friday night while walking home from shul.
I didn’t get it then and I still don’t get it.
After that year, the Levertov family didn’t need a sukkah anymore since they were three women living in the house who did not halachically require a sukkah.
My memories of Sukkos run deep. For example, if you thought putting up those sukkah walls and slats for the roof was a painstaking and arduous process, you really had to behold what effort it took to take it all down after yom tov was over.
Most of the time, my dad just hired someone to do it quickly and efficiently without having to hear all the complaints from us boys. He told me that someday I’d understand. Well, I do now. I understand quite well.
For the last many years, our good friends Steven and Jonathan Litton have been erecting our stylish sukkah—when we are home for the chag—that they designed and built in their own sukkah factory.
Today, the Litton boys personify the beauty of the holiday, how it should be celebrated and enjoyed with a certain comfort and panache that beautifies this special mitzvah.
Like the sukkah in the Waldorf Astoria, ours has all the comforts of home with direct exposure to the stars and heavens, making each yom tov, a truly memorable experience. n
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
