Comments (0)Sukkah As Classroom
October 5, 2007Phil Jacobs
Executive Editor
On a gorgeous Monday morning, a couple dozen middle schoolers from Fallstaff Middle School turned the Temple Oheb Shalom into a classroom of understanding.
Many of the students, mostly African American, live on blocks within walking distance of Fallstaff and have Jewish neighbors. So when the holiday of Sukkot comes around, they are used to seeing their Jewish neighbors building sukkahs, and they hear their neighbors engaged in lively conversations, song and prayer.
Yet, none of the children had ever been in a sukkah.
The students joined their teachers, Penny Campbell and Rebecca Pobee, in a teaching event co-sponsored by Temple Oheb Shalom and by CHAI (Comprehensive Housing Assistance, Inc.) as part of CHAI’s school community partnership.
Oheb Shalom’s Rabbi Steven Fink brought in three lulavim and etrogim for the children to hold and to actually shake in all the directions, as Rabbi Fink taught, “to remind us that God is everywhere.”
He gave the students his undivided attention. Rabbi Fink explained Sukkah to the children, its various symbols, and he even taught them Hebrew prayers said over the lulav and essrog.
Each student was given the opportunity to shake the lulav just like Rabbi Fink showed them.
Margaret Presley-Stein, an environmental educator who is working with Temple Oheb Shalom, then taught the students how the concept of the harvest brings Sukkot and the environment together in a natural way. After cookies and juice, following the appropriate Hebrew blessing, Ms. Presley-Stein took the children to visit the Temple Oheb Shalom garden, where they were given a taste of cucumbers and even held a bug or two in their hands.
A soft breeze blew through the comfortable sukkah. One of the students, Bryan Cole, said he was impressed by how well decorated it was inside.
“You could have a Sukkah party,” insisted classmate Daquan Veney.
“I wouldn’t mind living in here, like in a house,” added Malik Brandford.
Jill Blumenthal of CHAI said these sorts of programs offer a “great opportunity for the kids to see and to share in their community and their neighborhood.” CHAI is a constituent agency of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.
The students walked from Fallstaff Road to Temple Oheb Shalom with the idea that they would now have an even better appreciation of the sukkahs they would see on their way back to school.
“It’s pretty nice,” summed up student Devin Moore. “I wish I could come back again.”
And then one student, when the program was over, asked what the Hebrew word for “thank you” was.
When he was told, he shouted out, “Todah.”
I felt good for these children, because, like them, I also attended Fallstaff when it was an elementary school and almost the entire neighborhood was Jewish. But as Jewish as it was, there certainly weren’t as many sukkahs built in our community back in the 1960s as there are now.
Growing up in an unobservant family, these kids had their first sukkah experience around the time I entered a sukkah for the first time.
So what’s my point?
It’s simple. It’s great what CHAI is doing, bringing the minority children to the sukkah. Let me just insist, though, that there are plenty of Jewish children out there who haven’t been in a sukkah yet either.
CHAI, in its fine style, didn’t miss this opportunity to meld communities of different backgrounds. And that should be a model for us to never miss out on an opportunity to invite a co-worker, an acquaintance, any non-affiliated Jew you happen to know into the experience of Sukkah.
There was such a good feeling in that Oheb Shalom sukkah. The children couldn’t keep their eyes off the hanging fruits and vegetables and other decorations.
They really “got it.”
Offering that opportunity should never be taken for granted. And there are a few Jews who you know who would love more than anything to have that chance.
Give it to them.