Sukkot past and present

I am coasting through the holidays this year. I’m celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot with barely any shopping, cooking or preparing. I will refrain from complaining about having to pack and fly and feel jetlagged. I’m just going to relish the unusual treat, smile, enjoy and try my best to be a good guest. Though we spend Rosh Hashanah every year with my parents in Brooklyn, (a warm shout out to our Kingsway friends), we’ve only been away from home for Sukkot a couple of times. It feels so strange to be inviting no company, accepting no invitations, building and decorating no sukkah. It is so liberating, yet this freedom does come with its own baggage, and I don’t mean the suitcases we’ll be shlepping.

This year will be in sharp contrast to past Sukkot, when we’ve had visitors for nearly every meal. I remember one particular year, when my parents stayed over at our place for the holiday. As I set the table for each lunch and dinner, my mom asked me how many were coming. She secretly kept a tally of the number of people (including the five of us plus my parents) who had dined at our table for each repast that yom tov. I don’t remember the exact amount anymore, but as the holiday drew to a close, my mom laughingly announced the final total, insinuating how high and crazy the number was. I must admit that was a particularly hectic holiday. I worked hard planning, preparing, serving and cleaning up, but I had no regrets, just a feeling of satisfied exhaustion.

Usually the chagim consist of a better balance of eating at home and going out to friends for meals. Dressing up as a guest rather than a host, getting to enjoy the creativity of others’ Sukkot, interacting with fresh faces, tasting other families’ special holiday treats, all enhance the festival experience. The only downside to eating out is braving the elements since rain is inevitable during the holiday here. I’ve spent many a phone conversation before the start of a yom tov deciding whether or not to cancel our arrangements while checking up on weather reports and making sure we’re equipped with raingear, not wanting to inconvenience our host or be disappointed by no-show guests.

Celebrating Sukkot in Israel, as we plan to do this year, will present no meteorological challenge. In fact, it’s guaranteed to be dry since it’s during that time that we begin to pray for rain. Israelis are obsessed with rainfall and I’m always amazed that nearly anyone there can readily tell you how low the Kinneret level has fallen or risen lately.

Instead, the challenge for us during this fall holiday season will be splitting up the holidays between our kids. Rosh Hashanah will be spent with our boys and my parents, while Sukkot will be in Israel with our daughter and family and friends who live there. We will be enjoying one part of our beloved mishpocha while missing out on the other. As our kids become more independent and our family dynamic changes, we’ll have to learn to accept and somehow even embrace the new reality. I want to emphatically count our blessings and be grateful for each moment we can share even if it’s different than before. Though I will surely feel incomplete at times during this holiday season, I hope to fully enjoy those who do surround me at any given time.

It is amazing traveling around Israel during Sukkot. I love that the grocery stores are filled with holiday treats and the taxi and bus drivers wish passengers chag samayach. We plan to move around a lot, spending a few days here, a couple there, riding trains and buses from Nahariya in the north to Beersheva in the south. We will be staying with Israeli cousins, at B & Bs and a couple of days on a kibbutz with family. Though a totally different thing from making Sukkot at home, this year’s experience will be as hectic and rewarding in its own way as the year we hosted that record crowd. I will have to keep reminding myself to follow the advice I learned and now give to my yoga students; take a break now and again to stop, to notice, and to breathe consciously. I hope you will, too!

I want to wish The Jewish Star community and my family and friends shana tova, gmar chatima tova, an easy fast and chag samayach! I thank you for reading my musings and for letting me know what you think about them. I truly appreciate this unique opportunity to share my feelings and experiences with a wider and more kind and supportive audience than I could have imagined. I hope that through my personal lens I have and will continue to touch upon the universal emotions that are part of our daily lives. G-d willing, my next few musings will be emailed from somewhere in Israel. L’hitraot!

Miriam Bradman Abrahams is Cuban born, Brooklyn bred and lives in Woodmere. She organizes author events for Hadassah, reviews books for Jewish Book World and is very slowly writing her father’s immigration story. She is teaching yoga at Peaceful Presence Yoga Studio. mabraha1@optonline.net