Rabbi Howard Morrison

For those of us who grew up with a home sukkah, I imagine we have all sorts of memories. Growing up outside of Boston, I grew up with the annual tradition of a home-based Sukkah.

The metal work stayed up all year long in our backyard. After Yom Kippur, dad and the boys attached canvas walls to the four sides of the framework. We then unrolled bamboo carpets over the roof which served as the schach. Mom and my sisters were pruning branches from our front lawn, which were inserted into the gaps of the schach.

That was the Morrison Sukkah for years and years. We would eat dinner and lunch in it. We invited relatives and friends. Unlike last night, the first night was always rainy. Often after reciting Kiddush in the Sukkah, we had to retreat from the rains and eat the meal inside. Most years at lunch time, we were forced to share the Sukkah with a host of invading bees. I guess they were Jewish.

In the 1980's when I no longer lived at home, I was a rabbinical student in New York. Long before electronic media, I received in the mail from my parents an interview from the local paper. After a fierce storm, my childhood Sukkah had pancaked to the ground. fortunately, no one was inside at the time. The local paper got wind of this, no pun intended, and interviewed my parents.

The Talmud provides a debate on what exactly is a Sukkah - a human made hut? Or the clouds of God's glory? The first is the earthly realm - temporary, frail, vulnerable. The second is transcendent, permanent, and eternal. The two definitions remind us that while we strive to attain eternal and lofty goals, everything around us is transient and imperfect.

Thus, the Sukkah is real on one hand and idealistic on the other. We live with the beauty and the tension of the physical and the spiritual.

Chag Sameach!

Rabbi Howard Morrison