How a Sukkah is like a Christmas tree
I am way behind on my sukkah decorating this year. The kids have gotten too big and too busy with school and sports and studying to make a paper chain. My husband is away in Japan. I will miss spending Sukkot in the old neighborhood, where my neighbor, a rabbi, could be heard joyfully singing kiddush with his family under a full Sukkot moon. So, in lieu of writing a whole new post on the holiday, here is a recycled one from a few years back…
Okay, so the headline of this post might shock and offend some, but please let me explain my bold statement.
Growing up in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Staten Island, as the Chanukkah song from Adam Sandler song goes, I was the only kid on the block without a Christmas tree. Our neighbors invited my family over for cake and tree decorating and we in turn invited them on Chanukkah to light our menorah, spin a dreidel and eat fried potato latkes.
Even back then I understood that Christmas was a big holiday, and Chanukkah was a minor Jewish one. But Christmas trees still left me with a feeling of being on the outside, my nose pressed to the frosted window.
A menorah, no matter how big, even the ones that the Chabad Lubavich movement lights, just can’t compete with the smell of fresh pine, the twinkling lights and the tinsel to a Jewish kid on…
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Stacy Gittleman 