S.7 #2 | Our first Sukkot

In this episode, I recount my family's first Sukkot celebration and building of the sukkah. You will learn about the traditions of this Jewish holiday, find out how our synagogue celebrates and hear some recommendations for building and purchasing sukkah materials.

Mentions:

Sukkot - a joyous, seven-day Jewish festival celebrating the autumn harvest and commemorating the 40 years the Israelites lived in temporary shelters

Sukkah - a temporary, hut-like dwelling built for the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot

Lulav and etrog - essential ritual objects used during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, representing the "Four Species" (Arba Minim)—a palm frond (lulav), myrtle, willow, and a citron (etrog)—bound together and waved in six directions to symbolize God's presence everywhere and the unity of the Jewish people. Each species represents a different spiritual quality, combining Torah study and good deeds, and the waving ritual expresses gratitude and prayer for sustenance. 

Ushpizin - movie about Sukkot in Israel

To see photos of my sukkah, head to Instagram or TikTok @lovetohealpodcast

Transcript

Hello my dear listeners! If you are enjoying what you hear, please be so kind as to share my podcast with friends and family and whoever else you think might benefit from some spiritual and traditional inspiration. Let’s begin!

It’s January of 2026 and it’s been some time since the holiday of Sukkot (last year it fell on October 6-13), but I didn't get a chance to talk about it last season, so I am going to share my experience of last year’s sukkot now. Before I jump into our preparation and celebration of this holiday, let me explain what it’s all about. Sukkot is a joyous 7-day Jewish holiday celebrating the fall harvest and commemorating the Israelites' 40 years of wandering in temporary shelters after leaving Egypt. It is marked by building and dwelling in a Sukkah and using the "Four Species" (lulav, etrog, myrtle, willow). It's known as the "Season of Rejoicing" and it emphasizes gratitude, divine protection, and unity. The key traditions are:

• Building a temporary hut with a roof of natural materials (like branches) that allows you to see the stars, symbolizing reliance on God. This hut, to be considered kosher requires at least two full walls and one partial wall, it should be sturdy enough to withstand wind but not a hurricane, with a roof (schach) made from organic material (like branches or reeds) that allows some sun and stars to be visible, and a minimum size of roughly 22x22 inches but no maximum size limit. 
• Dwelling in the Sukkah means that we are to eat, celebrate, and sometimes even sleep in the Sukkah for seven days (depending on climate and weather conditions).
• The Four Species: What we do is wave and bless an etrog (citron- looks like a big lemon), lulav (palm frond), hadassim (myrtle), and aravot (willow) in specific directions to pray for the world.
• Hospitality: Welcoming friends, family, and guests into the Sukkah. 

If you would like to see what sukkot looks like in Israel, I highly recommend you watch a movie called “Ushpizin”. It’s an older movie, from 2004, but it’s very cute and it will give you a good idea of how sukkot ought to be  celebrated and how it’s done in the Holy land amongst the ultra-orthodox Jews.

Last year was the first time that my family actually celebrated this holiday. We didn’t do everything we should have and probably could have done to commemorate this important holiday, but we did a lot! First of all, we built a sukkah! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have a sukkah in my backyard for a whole week! When the time came to start thinking about how, where and when to build it, the matter turned out to be more complex than we had expected. After looking at dozens of youtube videos and pinterest ideas for a sukkah, my husband and I settled on a wooden sukkah that would be temporarily built on our deck. We happen to have a 2-story deck, so we opted for construction on the second floor because it made serving food easier, since the kitchen leads right to the deck. Unfortunately, or fortunately, my husband had to travel for work the weeks leading up to sukkot, so in fear of not meeting the construction deadline, I called my dad and asked for his assistance. Since my dad is a contractor and very handy, he immediately appropriated the project and told me to leave it to him. My husband wasn’t super happy about this because he had his own ideas of how to build the sukkah, and in general he wanted to partake in the construction, but instead what happened was that when he came back from his overseas trip, the majority of the sukkah was already built and not to his standards. After some discontent and family feuding, he came to an agreement with my dad and took it upon himself to make the final  preparations for the holiday. 

I was actually happy that I involved my dad because this way he had at least a tiny bit of exposure to Judaism. Having grown up communist and atheist, he never studied much about Judaism nor did he observe any holidays, and I think it made him happy to see me carry on our traditions and be invited to be part of it all. Lately, he tells me that he does believe in God, that he would like to learn more about Judaism, but that he’s too old and too stubborn at this point to begin anything new or change his views on life. But I’m not giving up on him, which is why I invite him over for Shabbat from time to time and sometimes to our synagogue for special events, such as giving Jewish names to our kids - look out for this super interesting episode coming out soon!

Once the carcass of the sukkah was built out of many 2x4s, it came time to put up the walls, which we decided to make out of large tarps that would protect us from wind and rain. I ordered schach- the roof on amazon, which was very convenient and even kosher! We stretched rope across the top of the sukkah, which would support the light bamboo mats serving as the roof. Once all this was done, my daughter and I began to decorate. That was the fun part for me! We used fake flowers, ribbons, streamers and some cute curtains I found laying around in my basement. By the way, if you’d like to see photos of my sukkah, head to Instagram or TikTok, you’ll have to scroll a bit because it was a few months ago, but it’s all there! 

Since I have a pretty big family, we were concerned that we  would not fit in our rather compact sukkah, but somehow we managed to seat almost 20 people fairly comfortably! Thankfully, the weather didn't disappoint either. Some nights it was chilly, so we wore coats, but other nights we were fine with just sweaters. I was ecstatic to be able to host in a real sukkah of our own!  One thing that we didn’t get to do was to shake the lulav and etrog every day in our sukkah. I could have bought it from our schul, but we were feeling already somewhat overwhelmed with all the preparations and all the steps to follow that we didn’t feel like we were ready to carry out this mitzvah on our own, because there is a particular way to hold and shake the lulav and etrog, specific prayers to say at specific times, we didn’t think we could do it correctly on our own this time around. Thankfully, while we were at schul and at our rabbi’s house, we were able to partake in this mitzvah there. 

So let me tell you now a little bit about our rabbi’s sukkah. Theirs was constructed right outside of their kitchen, one of the walls being the wall of the house, which conveniently had the kitchen window, making it easy to serve food from the kitchen right to the sukkah through the window. The other walls were constructed of plywood, which kept us very warm. At their table, they could comfortably seat about 16 people I would say. While at their dinner, we enjoyed saying all the proper blessings, singing Jewish and Yiddish songs, and of course eating the most delicious jewish dishes such as gefilte fish with horseradish, chicken soup and various types of meat. 

We also had a chance to visit our head rabbi’s sukkah, which is larger and has a tradition of guests writing their names on the plywood, some of them dating back a decade. Every year, the rebbetzins organize a scavenger hunt for Hebrew school students, which we love to attend because we also get to learn a ton about the holiday and visit 3 sukkahs - 2 that are our rabbis’ and one that’s the huge one for the schul. It’s very convenient to have our rabbi and his daughter and her  husband, who is the second rabbi, living in houses adjoining  the schul’s property.

Since a major mitzvah of sukkot is to invite guests over and eat together in sukkah, we made up a whole schedule of who would come which day. One of the days, my dad, and my two brothers came with their families, on another - our friends, on another - our oldest daughter’s boyfriend and his parents. One of the evenings, we were invited to one of our rabbi’s sukkahs, and on another night, we had dinner at our schul’s huge sukkah. It was a week of fun, socializing and tons of yummy food.

For next year, I plan to step it up a notch. I definitely want to purchase a lulav and etrog so we can use it in our sukkah every day. I want to try our best to have all our meals in the sukkah, not just dinner. Unless it rains or there is a hurricane, we should be eating all meals in the sukkah and just spending more time in it in general. If you’ve never put up a sukkah, I encourage you to do so! If you’re not handy, ask for help or even hire someone to put it up for you. Let’s keep our ancestors’ traditions alive!

Mentions:

Sukkot - a joyous, seven-day Jewish festival celebrating the autumn harvest and commemorating the 40 years the Israelites lived in temporary shelters

Sukkah - a temporary, hut-like dwelling built for the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot

Lulav and etrog - essential ritual objects used during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, representing the "Four Species" (Arba Minim)—a palm frond (lulav), myrtle, willow, and a citron (etrog)—bound together and waved in six directions to symbolize God's presence everywhere and the unity of the Jewish people. Each species represents a different spiritual quality, combining Torah study and good deeds, and the waving ritual expresses gratitude and prayer for sustenance. 

Ushpizin - movie