Happiness is a sweet sukkah and lots of love

I have been thinking a lot about roots lately. About where I would like to settle with my daughter, buy a house, adopt a puppy. Because when we left our hometown of Atlanta eight years ago, I didn’t know how long our adventure would last. I didn’t know we would live in small, but charming apartments, first in calm, rainy Portland, Ore., then in frenetic, sunny Los Angeles. And that after a while, the temporary nature of our dwellings, and so much time spent far away from where we started, would pose a question of its own.

Where do we belong?

It seems the core ritual of Sukkot, building the sukkah, has something to say about just that. Because according to tradition, this temporary, four-walled structure with a branch roof open to the sky is a reminder of the Israelites’ huts in the deserts, as they wandered from place to place for 40 years.

But Michael Strassfeld says in his 1993 book “The Jewish Holidays: A Guide and Commentary, “that the sukkah also highlights one of the themes of the holiday — the impermanence of our lives.” Strassfeld explains that in a talmudic debate over the meaning of the sukkah, Rabbi Akiva argues: “The sukkah makes us realize what sheltering is all about,” and that our permanent homes, with glass windows, high walls and locked doors, are not where true security lies.

Strassfeld adds that Akiva’s view of carrying our dishes and our food outside to be eaten in a portable, shaky structure reminds us “we must be able to carry a sense of shelter with us wherever we go because to become too rooted in one place makes us inflexible.” And if the wind rattles the walls, or raindrops interfere with dinner, Akiva believes the sukkah teaches us that “no one can protect his or her spirit from all of life’s contingencies.”

Beth Shir Shalom, the small synagogue my daughter and I discovered a few years ago not far from our apartment, has a special Sukkot ritual that deliciously honors the rewards of temporary but open, creative shelters. Each year, in the back parking lot, near the sukkah they build and the small petting zoo they invite, they fill a long folding table with boxes of graham crackers, tubs of frosting and bowls and bowls of candy. And the children gather round to build graham-cracker sukkot held together by chocolate and vanilla mortar and topped with licorice roofs, marshmallow windows and walls decorated in red, yellow, green, blue and orange fruit-shaped candies.

The children lick their fingers and make a terrific mess, but they each build something closer to a sugarcoated memory than a long-lasting house. After the rabbi and cantor say the prayers and sing in the real sukkah and my daughter and I leave, carrying her thickly frosted sukkah, I feel grateful for having been there, and for balmy evenings in the California air. And when we step inside our apartment, turn on a small light and take one bite of the candy-coated roof, then another, and watch the moon hang in our porch window while we eat the chocolate layers, until the sukkah is no more, I understand the heart of home, permanent or not, beats in these moments.

Frosted Candy Sukkah

Makes 7-8 sukkah

1 lb. box honey graham crackers

16-oz. container chocolate frosting

16-oz. container vanilla frosting

Assortment of colorful candies of your choice, such as red licorice vines, gummy bears, candy hearts, marshmallows, Skittles and Dots

With a small, child-safe utensil (a plastic knife or spreader works well), frost the flat sides of graham crackers. Then layer bottom, top and side ledges of cracker with frosting to help walls stand. (It also helps to put a line of frosting on the area of the plate on which you plan to erect your sukkah.)

Adhere crackers to one another and the plate, carefully, pressing gently. Use 3 to 4 graham crackers per sukkah. The frosting will hold better with time as it hardens.

Gently layer candies onto or around the structure to your own design specifications. Sukkot are meant to be decorative, so the more color, the better!

Take a picture, eat and enjoy!