Lecture delivered on Sukkahville Award Night 

Sukkot is a holiday when Jews step outside ourselves.  We go from fast to feast, from people unsure about how to use a hammer to spiritual Home Depot experts. 

We tell jokes about our lack of expertise. Jackie Mason jokes about Jews who use butter knives as screwdrivers. Some of you know that Rashi is a great medieval French interpreter of the Talmud. His grandsons were known as Tosafot, the Ones who Add. They were associated as commentators who often critiqued their grandfather. With that in mind, let me tell you a story:  

A family went to the Rabbi and asked, “Rabbi, how do we build a sukkah?” The rabbi opened the Talmud to Tractate Sukkot, found the spot he (or she) was looking for, and read aloud from the Rashi (commentary) some very specific instructions for building a sukkah. The family thanked him and went away.

The next week, the rabbi saw them again. This one had a bandaged head, and this one had a cast, and that one was limping … “What happened?!” cried the rabbi. “Well, we followed the instructions to the letter, and we were sitting in the sukkah enjoying our meal, and the first big wind came along and blew it down on our heads!”

Oy oy oy!” cried the rabbi. “I don’t understand! Rashi was so clear about how to build it!” So back the rabbi went to the Talmud and opened up to the same page, and re-read the instructions. Then he read a little further and looked up. “You know?” he said. “Tosafot asks the same question about Rashi.”

In Visions of Space, Traditions of Place,  Julia Brauch, Anna Lipphardt, and Alexandra Nocke ask a different question: “How have Jews experienced their environments and how have they engaged with specific places?”  On Sukkot we extend ourselves beyond our comfort zone, going from secure and dry residences to temporary, tottering shacks, exposed to the elements. We leave the private and protected space of our synagogues to go into the public square where strangers see our sukkot and wonder about these huts and the people within them.

All this is evident in Jewish neighbourhoods, when many people put their sukkot in their backyards or, occasionally in areas usually reserved for parking in apartment complexes. But here, tonight, in Toronto, the low-tech sukkah has become high design and in-your-face. Sukkahville has arrived!!!

A bit of history. We were inspired by Sukkah City, an exhibit of architecturally avant-garde sukkot on display in NYC last year. The idea came from Reboot, a project to find new ways to express Jewish life, communal culture and personal identity.

When I read about it and saw the photos, I became very excited. Here was a new way to conceptualize an ancient tradition. I shared my enthusiasm with the Canadian Jewish News and leaders of our UJA Federation. They were already thinking about the possibility.

A year later, we can be grateful to UJA Federation for supporting the effort of Kehilla to adopt the project; Nancy Singer and Kehillah for taking an idea and transforming it into a project of substance;  Our volunteers and sponsors who enabled Sukkahville to go forward; Our distinguished panel of judges; the contestants who submitted designs; and of course, our top five submissions which have shown amazing and awesome creativity.

Clearly these are not your zeyde’s sukkot. 

As you know, a sukkah is an ephemeral, elemental shelter, erected for just over one week each fall. It is available to share meals, entertain, sleep, and rejoice. On one level, the sukkah's religious function is to commemorate the temporary structures that the Israelites dwelled in during their exodus from Egypt.

But it is also about universal ideas of transience and permanence as expressed in architecture. The sukkah is a means of ceremonially practicing homelessness, while at the same time remaining deeply rooted. It calls on us to acknowledge the changing of the seasons, to reconnect with an agricultural past, and to take a moment to dwell on--and dwell in--impermanence.  Thus the sukkah is a stable yet multivalent symbol that serves as an expression of empathy with the homeless, offers a reminder of harvest and evokes a memory of the wilderness sojourn.

Many of you know the basic rules and regulations for a sukkah:  it must be temporary, have at least two and a half walls, be big enough to contain a human torso, and have a roof made of organic materials. It has to be at least a meter tall and the roof can’t be more than 18 feet above the base.  The sukkah must provide more shadow than sunlight, yet allow those within to peek through the covering to see the stars.

Many of us have a same old, same old perspective on Sukkot. Whether they have plain walls or painted sides, are constructed from wood or use canvas, have pine boughs or bamboo roofing, most of the sukkot on Bathurst Street will be fairly similar.  

But other parameters have been developed by my creative and curious rabbinic predecessors.   For example:

• May a Sukkah be built in a tree? Yes.
• May it be built under a tree branch? No.
• May it be constructed on a boat, on an open backed wagon or truck? Yes.
• May a wall be created using a whale? Yes.  
• How about an elephant? Are you ready for the answer?  Yes!

Halakhah provides the design constraints and throughout the generations builders have brought their creative imagination.

Some unusual sukkot are on exhibit in Neot Kedumim, a Biblical nature preserve in Israel. The Spertus Museum in Chicago held an exhibit in 1994 to stimulate design creativity. 

We wanted to see how creative architects and designers could be within the constraints of Jewish law. Could they produce a structure that is new and old, contemporary and classical, nomadic and emplaced, open and enclosed, heimish and wholly different, comfortable and creative?

I draw a number of insights from Sukkahville. The many sacrificial offerings designated in the Torah for Sukkot were understood by the rabbinic tradition as being for the nations of world. Torah is not just something for Jews. Torah has something to say to the world.

Sukkot is not just about our own celebration. Those of us who have sukkot often invite in only our own friends. We can welcome spiritual ushpizin and people living in our ‘hood. We are challenged to find a way to open ourselves to others by welcoming guests who may be from other segments of society.

In one Biblical Psalm recited 3 x each day, we say: (ashrey yoshvey betekha). In addition to our own personal experience, what contributes to spiritual contentment and inner satisfaction: attunement to the totality of life - global sustainability. Constructing a just and compassionate society,

We can use our temporary dwelling to spur governments to address issues of affordable housing. We need to remind ourselves that here, in Toronto, people live on the street or in temporary shelters all the time. We can stand in public using the teachings of our traditions to engage the society and the world on important issues based on a strong sense of our own selves, traditions and community.

Sukkahville also serves as a reminder for Jews and others to keep balance in their lives. We need to breathe the air, take time to be outdoors, and restore a connection to land and water. If Sukkot is about sustainable living, then it is also a challenge for all of us to control consumption.

For next year, I dream that we will engage even more people, construct a partnership between Kehilla, major schools of architecture and design, and even more creative contributors.  We could erect the sukkot in Nathan Phillips Square, named for the first Jewish mayor of Toronto. I hope that we can leverage the sukkah to assist our city to move forward on the agenda of affordable housing and to challenge more Torontonians to look for ways to create a sustainable lifestyle.

Reflecting on Sukkah City, Gary Rosenblatt, the editor of the New York Jewish Week, wrote:

The blessings in our own lives inspire us to reach out beyond our own needs to attend to those of others, to recognize that our planet’s resources are a gift but not a guarantee, and that we must do all we can, in partnership with our Creator, to preserve, protect and enhance this world we share. On Sukkot we step out of our comfort zone and into the sukkah, reconnecting with ancient traditions and establishing new commitments to sanctify this world and all who inhabit it. As we sit outside in the cool autumn air, may the warmth of the sun and the night time glow of the stars inspire us to reach both heavenward and deep within our hearts.

Whether it is our simple sukkot or the innovative ones of Sukkahville, the vision is the same: to reach from the simple to the sublime, to use the temporary to aspire to the eternal, and to renew the ancient using our contemporary creativity. By doing all this we shall sanctify and sustain our lives here on earth. Thank you all for making Sukkahville a temporary reality.