Sukkot: An Afterword

My Sukkah is a boxkite, yearning to be free!

I already knew that from a few years ago, when I received a phone call from my next door neighbor during Chol HaMoed that my Sukkah had taken flight. We share a driveway, and my sukkah did an excellent imitation of a pinball, bouncing off both of our houses at it worked its way towards the street.


My neighbor had to tie a rope to it to prevent the sukkah from planting itself in the middle of the street--and that is how I found my sukkah when I came home: tied to my garage yet partially in the air, still trying to fulfill whatever homing instinct sukkahs have when empowered with the gift of flight.

That was a few years ago--and yes, my neighbor still talks to me, despite the dents in the side of his house.

Actually, he spoke to me last week late Wednesday afternoon to remind me of the weather report: lots of rain, and lots of wind. Since that fateful day, I put 4 big bags of gravel on all four sides of the sukkah to weigh it down, and take the extra precaution to use rope to anchor it to the house and the garage.

But with the weather report predicting tornado-strength winds, it was obvious my neighbor was nervous.

My rabbi advised me to take down the schach for the moment, and arrange with my neighbor to put it back when should the weather cleared. As it turns out, my neighbor has wounds from when he was in the Navy that precluded that possibility.

I had no choice.
So I took off the schach.

The sukkah looked bear without the schach, and besides--what about the canvas covering?
So I took off the canvas covering.

The sukkah looked almost alien without the canvas covering
So I took the poles apart too.

In the end, I put everything away.
There was no rain that night, so I was able to make Kiddush and HaMotzei by a friend.
There was no rain the next morning, so I was able to make Kiddush and HaMotzei at shul.

Apparently, when the weatherman predicted enough rain over 3 days as we would get over 2 months, what he meant was: we would get as much rain over those 3 days as we had gotten the past 2 months.

My wife tells me she wants to get a new, larger sukkah for next year.

Time to get bigger bags of gravel and stronger rope.

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