Rabbi Reuven Lauffer - Sukkot

oh suckers right we've reached suckers so caught you put this on the circle before you don't get put but you got to wait till afternoon nah you could you can put it up before if you want but it does it does say that i'm not saying kipper it's a mitzvah to build a circuit so uh what people are already yeah sure i mean you know there's only a limited amount of time so yeah whatever whatever these years are wrong yeah what between uh well i mean a lot longer no no no to wednesday night not long is relative i'll keep on thinking of your legs well what we what what i do is normally i put up the sucker before young kipper and then on kipper we put the scratch on but uh you know really you should uh have one everyone's got to work this out according to their schedule because it ain't simple do you sleep in the circle sure you do yeah it's great you're kidding you shall you know you shallam is beautiful the uh in in england sukkah you know that the weather's normally abysmal you know we can i remember when i was growing up so because sukkos was either sweltering hot with wasps and bees flying around in the sucker being attracted by the honey or it was freezing cold and pouring with rain but i don't think there was ever anything in between it was either that or that and uh you know i remember i remember years where we would go out to the sucker and we would make kiddish and then we'd go back inside because it was possible impossible to stay there okay so carl let's have a look at sukkat um first of all let's you know well let's talk about the sucker itself um you'll probably see suckers sprouting up all over the place over here on the on the porches and here i can see i can see one through the window over here actually that somebody's built out there on the on the uh passageway going up um what what it what is a sucker well i mean a sucker is like a temporary it's a temporary dwelling place right the whole idea of sukkot is that we go out for seven days and we live in these things and uh we're supposed to do everything there so we eat and we drink and we learn and we we sleep and everything's supposed to be happening in the sukkah and it's it's a sense it's a scent what we're trying to do is we're trying to we're trying to understand the sense of how everything in this world in the physical world is temporary and very much ethereal and we're trying to get ourselves protected by god not not not to rely on the physicality in the world that's one of the reasons why suckers are normally pretty flimsy structures um some are some aren't you may come across some suckers that are like pretty impressive but in general you know people people i don't know my brother's got a sucker built into his house he doesn't have to build it he just has to remove he's got like some kind of a plastic bubble thing that sits during the rest of the year sits on top of an opening in his in the in the roof and on circus he just has to open it up um which i think is a swiss because you know sukkas is all about schlepping wooden things around and getting split if you don't get any splinters before circles something's wrong you know you haven't you haven't fulfilled the mitzvah in its entirety if you don't have a handful of splinters and he's just going to pull a couple of strings and the thing pops open it's quite neat actually um so you know you'll come across some very impressive structures but the idea the the you know the the philosophy behind the sucker is that we're supposed to we're putting ourselves into the hands of god and we're saying here you look after us and we recognize that god is looking after us and then because because of that we now understand when we go back into our homes that even when we've got a home and we've got a proper roof on top of our heads even then god is looking after us then as well so let's have a look and see how do you how do you build a sucker what do you need for a sucker you need a minimum of two and a half walls so uh in order to be able to build a sucker you need to be you need to have a minimum of two and a half walls and it's got to be built in a way that you can put the the uh the on the top we'll talk about the suck in a moment uh what can the walls be made out of well you can really make them out of anything there is a slight problem some of that there are there are some pretty nifty clipped together sukkot that you can buy you know they've got they come with their with uh metal bars and they clip together and it takes all of you know it takes all of a couple of minutes to put the thing together it's really very uncomplicated and then you have you have a material that goes around the sides and you've just made your sucker the only problem with a sucker like that is that the sides according to the sides have to be something which don't move around when there's wind they've got to be made out of something that they've got again we're talking halachically in a minute you'll see why i'm stressing that because according to jewish law we're going to work out a way where you can have these sukkot that have the uh that have the material going around and how to make it okay how to make it kosher if you just put up the sucker with the frame and the and the material then it's not going to be okay you need to have going around from the bottom coming up a certain a certain height you need to have a series of either either something either metal bars or um some some kind of a you know rope that goes around very tightly that so it doesn't move and that's going to be the equivalent of a halachic wall and that's going to be okay and then you can put you can put the uh the material around it that's not a problem the material can blow around in the wind that's not a problem either but you've got to have this situation where you've you've now created a wall according to jewish law and that's going to make your sucker okay to sit in right um and then you've got to put on the sock on the top what is this made out of that grows right something which is which is uh something which is natural it's got to be it cannot be attached to the ground so if you've got a tree growing in your garden and you decide that you want to put up your sugar underneath the tree thinking to yourself that the branches of the tree are going to serve as the as the as the as a cover that's not good enough that's not going to count and you're not able to fulfill the mitzvah you've got to put something that's got to be detached and it's got to be put on now when i was growing up many many years ago when i was growing up so the schach that was used was normally branches that were cut down from trees again in england we didn't have any palm trees so uh you know it was all kinds of different trees um all times different branches and leaves and it was you know it was it was very pretty um here in israel the prevalent leafage that is used comes from a palm palm trees because there's lots of those around and uh you'll see people selling piles of piles of these things uh each year sometimes the iriana municipality actually has locations where you can go and pick them up for free because it's actually it's you know it's good it's good for everybody these things because the the municipality likes to trim the trees get them ready for the winter and so they trim off all the foliage and then people come pick up the photos for free and they can put it on their sucker and that way everybody's benefiting the municipality benefits and the people benefit as well what a lot of people have are reusable mats right they're normally made out of bamboo and they're strung together with special string and uh they roll up they're very very functionable you know once you're finished with them you can roll them up and put them away they don't take up too much space and a lot of people use those things as well and now what you have to be careful for when you're putting a strap on if you're going to use a mat for example you know it can get pretty windy over here in jerusalem i don't know where you people come from you know perhaps it gets windy too uh you cannot tie the struck down with just anything you have to be careful what kind of material you use again it's got to be natural material you can't use you can't use a string you shouldn't use those what are those plastic what are they called those know what i mean those plastic things that you you pull them tight huh bungee cord oh zip ties zip ties is that what they're called yeah yeah zip ties that long long things you threaded through at one end and you pull them gelato hole yeah yeah zip ties okay um so you can't use zip ties and you shouldn't be using any any kind of you know metal metal uh you know cord whatever it is it's got to be something which is natural you can actually take and you could take a a a a a lulav right not a kosher lulav because which can't be used for the mitzvah and you can strip off the leaves one by one and you can thread them through and tie them on that's okay that's fine um and got to but you've got to make sure because what's the problem the the if the truck is flying around and it it opens up a big hole inside of the sucker then the sucker becomes not not comp used right it's not kosher anymore which is a little bit of a problem right seeing as how it's so caught so if if it's during if it's not if it's not on yount and it's during the intermediate days then you can put it back on and you can tie it back down but if it's on your it's a little bit of a problem so you've got to be careful with what you're doing you've got to be careful how you build your sukkah but you can make a beautiful sucker and you can decorate it and uh you eat we eat all our meals over there you're not supposed to eat anything outside of the sukkah right some people are very careful not to eat anything at all outside of the sucker but for sure you're not supposed to eat anything outside of the sucker that requires either to wash your hands like a mochi to eat bread or what's called bizarre not right what is this or not so we're talking about cakes we're talking about crackers we're talking about pasta we're talking about couscous we're talking about all kinds of all kinds of things like that so the image is like this it's true that chicken you make a shahakal over right but i think that meat should be eaten inside of the sucker because meat normally signifies a more serious meal right even though today we sort of i think we've lost we've lost sight of you know whether meals are serious or not um you know you could buy yourself a sandwich on the run that's stuffed full of stuff full of meat but in the olden days if you ate meat that was considered to be a sooner and the truth is in the olden days when people ate meat they would never eat meat by itself they would always wash and they would make a proper meal out of it and that's something that should be done inside of the inside of the sucker for sure but let's say for example you want to you know you want to drink you want to drink some hot chili sauce for example um as a conversation starter i don't know right he loves when you talk i i see that i saw the way i saw the way his face lit up over there i look at that look at that smile it's like look at that it's like it's great it works i'm telling you this stuff works so what's going to be going on in circus it's all going to be a lot of fun uh we've got again prayers lot lots of synagogue i'm sorry sorry to break it to you quite like that but there's lots of prayers going on however on the first night of sukkot which is on wednesday night so you'll go off to wherever you're eating your meals and you'll meet you you'll eat the meal in the sukkah and there's a special blessing which is recited when you eat food in the sucker it's called lay shave basil every time you're going to eat any food any significant food inside of the sucker you're supposed to make that broccoli shaved it's a very beautiful broccoli to be able to make it's an opportunity and again you'll eat your meal over there like i said before most people over here in israel sleep in their suckers as well which means at some point you know everything gets cleared out and mattresses get brought in and uh you know you sleep out there and it's the kind of thing that sleeping outside i love you people sleep out in the open very often but for you know most people that are living sort of regular regular urban lives don't sleep out very often so it probably takes about a week to get used to sleeping outside and then you have to move back in and get used to to spend another week getting used to sleeping back inside again um i know that in in my sucker at home uh one of the one of the things that wakes me up far too early uh the birds on on the on the stuff their claws right you you hear them like shuffling around over there i don't know what they're maybe they're dancing i don't know what they're doing exactly but it certainly makes a lot of noise that's for sure um so that's the first night uh there'll be lots of there'll be lots of good food there'll be another special broker which is going to be reciting another special blessing which is the shechiano blessing the blessing that we make whenever we get to a new a new yamcha so we make that new festival we make that special blessing you make it the first night yeah you make it by the second night i tell you the truth i do not remember because it's been i mean you're only keeping one eye don't you you only give me one day yeah i don't remember what happens with the i think it's yeah you say it why okay never mind i got the i remember again you remember you said yeah you said it second night as well okay good i mean i don't know don't remember um in the morning when you go to shawl in the morning that's when the fun is going to begin right because we've got you know there's a lot of prayers to say so there's going to be the regular regular yamcha chakrit morning prayers and then then you get the little oven the esrig right so what will happen is you have to make a blessing over your little oven your esrig how do you do that so you take the lulav and the esteric and you hold the you know you know the lulav is really comprised of three of the species together so the palm branch in the middle and then you'll have the hadas in the myrtles on the right hand side and you'll have the willows on the left-hand side and that's all contained together like a little a little uh uh bless you all a little uh sort of pouch that's made out of the leaves of the palm branch and then there's the the etrog the citron which is going to be held in your left hand and you have to bring them all together and make a blessing over them now when you come to make the blessing there's a little bit of a technical thing over here the top of the edge which goes up right into you know into sort of like a little point at the end needs to be held downwards pointing downwards you need to hold it upside down when you make the blessing and after you've finished making the blessing you then turn the etrog the right way around and then you start waving it in six different directions now i'm going to tell you the the ashkenazi order of of of waving the uh lulav and the airstroke i am not going to tell you the hasidic and the sphadic method because i don't know them but you first you wave the little oven the s-rock in a forwards direction you then in a right to your right then behind you then to the left and then up and then down right now by the nusar svard which is the hasidic musa they do it it's a slightly different order if anybody here anybody here is there anybody here is there anybody here you're here okay no penny you want to tell us the order so it's uh february south south is down right uh no yeah it's up down yeah and uh right and left but you have to do this south north east west ah only four not six yeah ah yeah okay interesting okay good right i mean we got four there are four primary directions right but there's also up and down as well so in the ashkenazi the ashkenazi tradition is due up and down right as well um what what are we doing they're very they're very these things are very kabbalistic they're called na noonim and you you you're supposed to wave the lulav and the airstrike in these different directions and we're we're we're bringing god's majesty down into the world we're showing that i couldn't spoken that god rules over the entire world and uh it's a it's very beautiful everybody's gonna be doing that in show right after you've done that that this is when the real fun begins we have something called hakka foot or akka thought everybody is going to get into they're going to push all the furniture together and make a pathway so that you can go around in a circle around the bimmer all right hoshanahs the the the the safer toe will be taken out of the out of the ark somebody will hold it next to the bimmer which will be in the middle and then they'll start reciting fillers they'll start reciting prayers together and everyone will start going around right and depending on how many people there are in the show depends on how fast you're going to go you may find yourself like shuffling around not going very fast at all because there's too many people and not enough space to do this in that's okay please be careful if you're going to do this please be careful of other people's eyes a lulav is a rather sharp object and uh you know one of the reasons why jews as a rule seem to wear glasses more than other people do i think it's just to keep their eyes safe from the loving on sukkot right you didn't even know that and look at that now i know you keep the the uh you turn it up and you keep it up it's it's an interesting thing right because the you know being of being the kind the mitzvah of of abba meaning if you bring them together then you you've already you've already fulfilled the mixture of meaning before you've made the bracha right so in order if you turn it upside down then you haven't done it right you haven't you haven't fulfilled the mitzvah yet and then you can turn it the right way around after you've made the broth and then you can uh right so and that that's what's going to happen i see you you're practicing yeah i'm working on it good okay the uh you go go you go around you go around once all right we'll get to hoshanah rubber but for right for now on the first day of sukkot on the second day of the court the third day the fourth day the fifth day you're gonna go around one time right and then everybody comes back and they put their lull in their estrang away and then the safety torah will be read from every single day there's going to be kriyata torah it doesn't matter whether it's yonder but if it's going to be longer but for the rest of for the rest of uh sukkot every single morning there is reading from the torah and then the safa torah is put back into the ark and there's going to be mustafa every day there's going to be an additional amida which is going to be recited which is the mustafa meter the special one that's recited for sukkot and uh again you just got to be careful because each day you're going to say something a little bit different because each day has got its own it's each day's referenced inside of the ammeter itself i try to make the blessings of the louis venezuela before i start dabbling if there's a circle oh very good some people have the meaning some people have the custom that not to make the blessing of the lord of the esrog right after shakira right right before hale but rather to recite it in the sukkah before they go to shul and again i you know everyone should do according to their own custom some shules have a sucker in it anyway so for some people they'll they'll dash out you know at the end of at the end of the repetition of the immediate they'll dash out to the sucker make their broker over there wherever you make the blessing over the little having the ezra is going to be fine right if you do it inside of the shook if that's your custom that's what you should be doing and if you don't if that's not your custom that's fine as well whatever you do is okay yeah no i wasn't going to reveal that because i felt that it was far too kabbalistic but if you've already brought it up then i shall i'm now going to reveal to you this information but once you have heard it please destroy it mission impossible exactly are you ready yum too it's gonna begin on wednesday night the festival is gonna bring it on wednesday night thursday and friday for you people is yamchav all right for for everybody thursday is yamcha that's a festival day for people who are not from here who are not israelis so they're supposed to be keeping two days so why why do israelis why one and why two yeah yeah so the embassy is like this originally and this is going back we're going back now into even into temple times right originally when the jews were living in not just in israel but they were living out of israel as well um there had to be a method of letting them know when yomtav was right because how did that how did they decide when youtube it went according to the testimony that was brought to the temple in jerusalem right and there were jews that were living over the border in syria and they needed to know as well so they had a system it was quite a fascinating system actually of fires that were lit from hilltops and they only needed five in order for the in order for the message to get from jerusalem too syria right they had him on very strategic mountain tops on the way they were like fires when the minute he saw the fire he would light his and the person after him would like when he saw that right and the one after that would lie to his and they would know within a few minutes they would know that the new the new month has been decreed and then they would know how to be able to work out when the junctive was supposed to be the problem was that the system broke down after a while there was a sect of people who had an agenda and they would they would play around with when you know they would send off these fiery messages on days that would fit in with their belief system and things were getting messed up people were not keeping on the right days so the sages introduced a different system which involved sending out messengers now the messengers would go out after the new after the new month had been decreed the messengers would then start going out in order to bring the message to the outlying communities and it could take up to two weeks for them to get to where they need to get to the problem is that by the time they got there it would probably be yomtov already which means that the in the communities outside of israel they would keep two days because of the concern that maybe the maybe one of the days wasn't the right day and the other day was the right day right um the question is today why why are we still doing this because we're not we're not relying on any kind of eyewitness testimony in order to be able to make the new months anymore the you know hillel the hillel was second almost 2 000 years ago established the calendar that we're still using today right using the calculations of a month a lunar month is 29 and a half days long right which is why we have each rosh each month is either 29 days or 30 days they balance each other out because you can't have a a month which is 29 and a half days and then make a rosh chardish it doesn't work so each one is either 29 days or 30 days long and hillel sorted out when everything was going to be hitler the second not the famous hillel but his grandson sorted out the system whereby we know exactly when yonktav is going to be right so you can look in any calendar so now we know that on shabbat it's going to be yom kippur but you can look into the calendar to see where next yom kippur is going to be and in 10 years time in 100 years time as well and it will tell you why are we still keeping two days outside of israel why people still keeping today so the rambam says that one of the reasons is because it's like it's it's like a to remind the people living in the diaspora that they're not living in the place they're supposed to be living it's like a it's like a little bit of a it's a little bit of a of a trying to think of the right word to use over here but it's like i guess a little bit of a fine right that you should know that you're living in a place where you're not supposed to be living and therefore you're going to end up keeping the tradition of having to keep two days rather than keeping one day like they keep over here why are you people if you're here right now why would you have to keep two days or not one day so the answer is because according to the according to jewish law it's going to be defined about it it's not defined about your geographic location right now it's the the definition is going to be where where you are where do you live right which means that if a person comes to live in israel then that's it they keep one day but if a person is only staying in israel temporarily then they would keep two days like everybody else in the diaspora and the same way around if an israeli goes to the diaspora in israel he goes to america for sukkot so he doesn't have to keep two doors he keeps one day of yomtov it's a little bit more complicated than i don't want to go into all the details but because he lives in israel he's keeping one day as opposed to the people from america that are coming to hear that because they live in america they're going to keep two days is that clear sir yes sir good the only day that we don't use a lululemon in this rook is on shabbat all right it's on shabbat do not come to show your love on this like i can just see you guys turning up you know like i'm wandering into show like oh proud and like what's going on you know you'll be the only the only ones there with you'll have an answer don't do it don't don't come to show with a little evanescent shabbat why is that because the sages introduced a decree that people shouldn't end up carrying in a place where they're not supposed to be carrying so on shabbat we don't do it however there are still hakafat which means that the the uh the watchmen will call it the the safe photos can be brought into the middle into the bimmer and the various the various uh the various prayers that are recited are going to be recited as well for shabbat just without without the uh without the love of the estruct you