Family theme: “Your children shall be like olive shoots surrounding your table,” (Tehillim 128:3)—decorated in willow leaves. Torah verses with family names on each side.
(Credit: Joshua Israel Geller and Rosally Saltsman)
It’s that time of year again, when we build our sukkahs and take down the boxes of decorations filled with kindergarten masterpieces, pictures of Jerusalem, decorated posters of Talmudic sayings, tinsel, greenery and all things arba minim. Everyone’s sukkah has their own quirks—friends of mine always have an onion with feathers sticking out of it hanging from the ceiling to simulate btzeil knafeicha—“btzeil” reading as “batzal” (onion). The hundreds of thousands of sukkahs around the world are as unique as they are the same. With the exception of …
The Eisenbach sukkah: The Eisenbachs live in Eshel Hanassi and as the first year of being part of the family—by marriage—brought me to their sukkah on the first day of chag, I was introduced to a new concept in sukkah decorating—the sukkah theme.
For many years already, the Eisenbachs have been decorating their sukkah according to a yearly theme—chosen by my newly minted, and very creative daughter-in-law, Tzion. Every year, Tzion chooses a different theme. Last year, it was family. So, the sukkah was decorated with a family collage of notes and pictures and everyone in the family had a decorated verse from the Torah that included their name (even me. My Hebrew name is “Shoshana,” so there was the verse from Shir Hashirim—“As a rose among the thorns … ”).
All the Eisenbachs decorate—well the younger girls mainly.
The themes all have something to do with Sukkot and previous themes have included: A phrase from Masechet Sukkah—“I praise those who are lazy to go up to Jerusalem (and stay in their sukkah),”—which featured lots of cushions and comfy chairs; the secret of dance; light and shadow; and the year her brother, Amos, got married, the sukkah was transformed into a wedding venue in keeping with the theme that a sukkah is likened to a wedding canopy and the Jewish people to Hashem’s bride (Sfas Emes).
Last year, for the first time, Tzion had her own sukkah with my son, and her theme for this one was “home.” Because you are supposed to make your sukkah as your home, so she decorated it like a mini-apartment.
Of course, there is still the nod to tradition with paper chains and other standards (newly made), but the main feature is the yearly theme.
I’m thinking of joining the party and decorating my sukkah like the sukkah of Leviathan—it’s going to be a whale of a Sukkos!
