Sukkot & Simchat Torah

My most potent Sukkot memory didn't happen on Sukkot at all, but it has all of the important Sukkot ingredients: unity, protection, joy, and faith...

We tied everything with thick twine, and we watched the stars through the green branches, smelled figs and roses through the thin walls...

Sometimes I imagine my grandparents' sukkahs in the courtyards and on the rooftops of the Lower East Side tenement buildings. I think of the sukkahs in Poland and Hungary before the war; maybe they were also once covered in pure, white snow. Maybe my great- great-grandparents sat across from one another in their own first year of marriage in a tiny sukkah filled with light...

You are sitting in a sukkah. Its walls are panels of fragrant wood. On the floor beneath you dance patterns of light and shade, cast by the sechach, the scented roof of leaves above your head. Take a deep breath. Imbibe the peace within your sukkah’s walls...

Why would I, on one of the few times I could travel without any children, put myself in a situation where I am caring for a baby? And why would I be so quick to want to take care of Zoe, a little girl I don’t know and will most likely never see again, when I didn’t seem to have that kind of time, patience, or ability for my own baby?

They're given different names depending on the country that hosts them. Bustees in India, pueblos jovenes in Peru. Shanty towns if you want to odorize the concept. "Slums" if you call it like it is...

As I sit back in my chair behind my large oak desk, waiting for Windows to load, I wonder when I had become so conceited, where had this feeling of superiority come from? What is it that makes me believe even for even a fleeting moment that I am better than those two men?

While I can say that I always loved the exotic palm scent that permeates the whole festival, always enjoyed the elbowing and squashing that comes with a Sukkah packed to capacity, and the rainwater that cooled and diluted our soup, I can never say I treasured the Sukkah - until this year...

The three-year-old stood in her living room and carefully held the camera in her small hands. "Smile, Mommy!" Snap. We gathered around to see the digital image on the small screen. My friend was a giant, her head framed by the ceiling light fixture. "Wow," she said, startled. "This is how she sees me. I tower over her!"

"I want to know why the women aren't allowed to dance with the men." My anger sounded to my own ears flat, bold, the way I wanted it...

The children cut out a paper suitcase and four pieces of paper. They are asked to reminisce about everything that happened over the holidays, and to draw four things that they want to carry with them. They place these four drawings in their "suitcase" to keep them company in the months ahead...