“No more ridiculous than any other religious festival . . . “

October 9, 2006 - 5:59 PM by Sarah

I’ve never seen this blog before but it looks entertaining. The author seems to be a young Western woman who converted to Judaism and now lives in Israel with (near?) her boyfriend. (Sorry if I’m getting some details wrong.) Anyway, here is her take on Sukkot (and I recommend checking out her impressions of Yom Kippur in Israel, in the same post):

It has all been terribly festive around here. We’ve had New Year (Rosh HaShana), Yom Kippur, and now it is Sukkot. I was explaining to my mother that Sukkot was a holiday that you built a little shack outside your house and decorated it and then ate and slept in it for 8 days or so, and she completely did not believe me. When she realised I was not kidding she then summarily declared it ridiculous which I suppose it is a little bit, but no more ridiculous than any other religious festival . . . .

As for Sukkot, we went off to Ashkelon to celebrate it with Bob’s tripoliti family. They always have awesome food, and are incredibly warm and lovely people. Their sukkah was decorated with I swear what were leftover Christmas decorations, but perchance I could be wrong about that. We ate and ate and ate, and then we sat around making a giant rowdy noise outside. The weather is perfect for sitting outside, although there is a chance the first real rains could start in earnest, but it doesn’t really feel cold enough for that yet. We got home and were wondering if people really do sleep in their sukkahs, so we peeked out the window down at the neighbours, and sure enough we could see a foot and an arm belonging to someone who was sleeping in the sukkah. How awesome and nutty is that. I swear I could have stuck with Catholicism if they had had such whacky and wonderful holidays. Now Dij is going to smack me on the head for dissing the Cattle-ticks, but what can you do.

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