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Sukkah Soul is dedicated to creating meaningful forms and spaces inspired by text and sources. Our creations are built upon traditional ideas and research renewed with a delicate spiritual energy.
For those searching for a fresh relationship with Jewish ideas, our designs respond to an interest in reinterpreting traditional concepts.
Many of us practice the holidays with renewed interest. We eagerly welcome innovative music, thought and services, and are hungry for personal meaning through ritual.
The positive experience of holiday celebrations contributes to a loving family life, personal growth, inner peace and ultimately, good works in our communities.
Holidays and associated rituals are developed over time from the deep well of source material: text, story and custom. Artfully designed ritual objects can be a vehicle for participation in the holidays.
We offer the SukkahSoul sukkah kit and Judaica for sale as well as architectural design services with the hope of providing meaning and beauty in a compelling way.
We plan to offer more items for Jewish celebration soon, so please stay tuned and check back to see what is new.
Not only is it a delightful experience to sit in your sukkah, Sukkot is symbolic of a wealth of historical, spiritual and agricultural motifs.
The ideas about the Sefirot discussed on the SukkahSoul main webpage are found in traditional prayerbooks such as the Artscroll Siddur.
The sukkah reminds us of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt and wandering in the desert. Some say the booths were the clouds of glory that protected the Israelites in the desert. The sukkah is a symbol of Israel’s trust and faith that strength is found in
G*d. The humble structure it is also a reminder of poverty.
Sukkot has many names. It is also called the Festival of Booths. The sukkah expresses the theme of freedom and servitude. While Passover celebrates physical freedom and Shavuot celebrates spiritual freedom, the sukkah symbolizes inner freedom. Sukkot, The Festival of Ingathering, celebrates the final harvest of the year before winter and the produce of the Land of Israel. Sukkot inspired the founders of the United States to declare the Thanksgiving holiday. The liturgy calls Sukkot The Season of Our Rejoicing and happiness is essential to the celebration. Sukkot is associated with prayers for water. Some call Sukkot The Day of Sealing of vows, an extension of Yom Kippur. The sukkah is always a symbol of universal peace.
As we sit in the SukkahSoul sukkah surrounded by hanging fruit and feel autumn approach, see the sky and stars through the roof of leaves, our tradition since the Talmudic era calls us to study Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) during Sukkot.
Everything has its season,
and there is a time for everything under the heavens:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to uproot the planted ….
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to wail and a time to dance.
While studying at the Melton Jewish adult education program, my study partners and I were given the assignment to research Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). Learning that Kohelet is traditionally read during Sukkot, we decided to put up a sukkah at the holiday and study in it together. One of us had a sukkah kit, without instructions, and many unmarked pieces of wood and building connectors from a hardware store. It was like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. We tried to imagine how it was supposed to go together, using the available pieces. We added additional pieces of wood to stabilize, so-to-speak, the structure. Under the sukkah, which was anything but attractive, we read Kohelet.
I looked forward to continuing this yearly tradition, but I thought I could make a better sukkah. The design problem captured my imagination.
I also learned at Melton that the Rabbis explained Exodus15:2 to mean there is an obligation to beautify the commandment, hiddur mitzvah. Not only should the decorations of the sukkah beautify, I felt the sukkah itself could be beautiful.
I researched Sukkot and read about the association of Sukkot with the Kabbalistic imagery of the Sefirot, the ten manifestations, as it were, of Godliness. I found this in the traditional prayer book. The triangular forms of the sukkah took shape from the avenues of connection I saw within the Sefirot.
I designed the sukkah combining my love of design with my love of Judaism and started Sukkah Soul.
