#joy #sukkot #holidayofjoy #sukkah #structure #flimsystructure #holiday #jewishholidays #sleepinthesukkah #eatinthesukkah #floweredtablecloths #icanseethemoon #thewind
What if they gave a holiday and called it the "holiday of our joy"
What if all they asked of you, a city person, a person with two left hands, to build
a flimsy structure of sticks or wood,
And asked you, of all people, to complete that structure with a roof of branches
Hunting with your saw at the cusp of evening for maple or pine or oak?
Dragging them down your street, yellow pine needles leaving a path behind you
Your clumsy structure whose walls are old pink and purple bedsheets or flowered tablecloths
A structure that dances with the wind, bejeweled with pine cones
And the warm autumn sun slants down from between the branches overhead
What if they gave a holiday and called it the "holiday of our joy"
And asked you to sit it that structure
To eat in that structure, to speak, to study,
To take your children by the hand and sleep in that structure
Your kids dragging sleeping bags onto the floor which is littered with crumbs
Shimmying in, shoulder to shoulder, pajama to pajama
And what if the air was electric with excitement
Your children staring up at the stars between the branches
Eyes wide open, smiling lips, fingers pointing upwards
"I can see the moon!"
What if they gave a holiday and called it the "holiday of our joy"
and asked you to sit with your people in this structure called a sukkah
To offer your mushroom barley soup and the challah you struggled to perfect
To offer others the chance to sit under your cranberried canopy
which you have created with your hands, even as it droops slightly to the left
That structure where you have shared food with the bees,
who came uninvited and stayed until well after dessert
And what if in that sukkah where you have sat with your people and talked
an endless cloud of stories rising under the crown of filagreed branches
In this miraculous sukkah of simplicity and joy
What if they gave a holiday and called it the "holiday of our joy"
And the memories that were made in that sukkah lasted forever
You taste the soup and look at your children's smiling eyes
You taste the challah and think of your grandparents
With each sip of wine that you share with your friends
You sip the wisdom from your guests and have a taste of their lives
You feel the cool air on your face and know in your heart just what joy is
You sit in the drizzle and your hair gets wet but you don't want to move
You sit in this Sukkah, which you built with your own hands, so imperfect, like each of us
Yet only through this holy imperfection can we view the light of the stars.
Happiness is from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown