I feel like more than any other, Sukkos is the yom tov of hachnasas orchim. I mean, Pesach we say, “Kol dichfin yeisei v’yeichol,” but we also say things like, “Our family doesn’t eat anything on Pesach. Name a food, and we don’t eat it. Anyway, want to come to us for a seudah?” Shavuos we have very few guests between the late nights and the weird morning schedule where no one wants to commit to a time they can show up at someone’s house on the first dayAnd then Simchas Torah is back to the late nights and the weird morning schedule, and also nobody wants to look at food by then. Whereas Sukkos we want people to come.
“How about you sit outside and guard the dips while we trek into the house to bring out food?”
And yes, Sukkos meals with guests do have their awkwardness. You have all these great ideas about how, “We’ll have guests for the seudah; it will be so much fun!” But then you spend all your time going back and forth to the house; you’re nowhere near the conversation and you have no idea what’s going on. Whichever one of you stays in the sukkah is asking all the questions, and then you come in and you ask the same questions, and they’re like, “We already talked about this.” So between having all the same conversations twice and the walking back and forth, the seudos take twice as long.
In our family, my wife and I both get up and go into the kitchen. And the kids are supposed to get up and help too. So I guess the guests are supposed to sit in the sukkah by themselves? Maybe they can plan conversations for the next course.
“Okay, what are we going to talk to them about next?”
I kind of feel like this is why guests don’t come to us that often.
Sometimes the guests follow us in, and ask, “What should we bring in? Do you need help out here?”
And we say, “Wait; if you guys are here too, who’s watching the honey?”
Maybe we should have a one-course seudah so no one has to get up and miss any of the conversation. And that way no one leaves the guests alone to have their own conversation either. (“I can’t believe they had a one-course seudah.” “I know! How are we going to get sick of food by the end of Yom Tov?”)
But you know what? We still love having people over for Sukkos meals, because we want the scenery to change. Otherwise it’s a lot of seudos to be together with the same group of people. Even the most exciting family with the best sholom bayis is going to run out of things to talk about. Sukkos is our longest Yom Tov, and it’s right after 2 others. At some point, it’s like, “How about for Chol Hamoed we each go off and have our own adventures, and then we’ll regroup the last days and tell each other what happened?”
And you’re saying, “What about divrei Torah?”
You can look up a d’var Torah, but don’t rely on your kids for that. I’m sure there are plenty of amazing Divrei Torah about Sukkos, but mostly your kids will say the same five:
- How the letters in the word “Sukkah” represent all of the kosher shapes of a sukkah, unless you count the vav.
- The 4 types of people that the minim represent. (Which sheds some light into why by the end of yom tov we’re banging the aravos on the floor.)
- The 4 body parts that the minim represent. (“Why those body parts?” you ask your child. And he says, “I don’t know; I stopped paying attention after that, because I was busy thinking, “Wait. A heart isn’t shaped like a heart?”)
- Why Sukkos isn’t in the spring (except in the Southern hemisphere). You’d think it should be right between Pesach and Shavuos.
- Why Simchas Torah doesn’t come right after Shavuos. I don’t know what you expect the Jewish calendar to look like, and how this works with the previous d’var Torah. Should Shavuos be on Chol Hamoed?
Before Pesach, the rebbeim give them a notebook of 75 vertlach on the Sedarim alone. I know they can do it.
Having guests on Sukkos is also about people taking advantage of the fact that for one week a year, their dining room is a different shape. I have a neighbor who has a small dining room, but a nice big sukkah. So on Sukkos they go all out for guests. No pun intended.
Everybody is acutely aware of exactly how big their sukkah is. Like, “Oh, you should come to our sukkah! We have a 12 by 10!” “Oh, we have a 24 by 18!” That’s great. Nobody knows the exact square footage of their dining room. And if they do, you don’t want to eat with them.
“This is the conversation topic you came up with in the kitchen?”
People are proud of their sukkahs. You come to someone’s sukkah and they’re showing off: “Sit wherever you’d like!” they say. “The women have to sit on that side, because of the overhang.”
That’s why Sukkos is the one yom tov that we keep inviting people over even not during meals, for snacks they didn’t plan on having.
“Come make a bracha in our Sukkah!” Like we want their seal of kashrus.
And we give them something mezonos, so they can’t cheat and drink water or something.
“I can’t eat. I just ate my seudah.”
“Too bad! My wife went all the way to the house to get you cookies!”
There’s nothing like awkwardly eating a quick cookie in the doorway of someone’s sukkah while they look on, grinning.
They don’t care if you make a bracha acharona in their sukkah. They will schmooze with you until you leave.
“So you guys want to come to my sukkah now?”
“Nah.”
They’re going to wait outside their house to grab more passersby, like Avraham Avinu.
“You want to come over for cookies?”
“What are we, five?”
“No, you can make a bracha in my sukkah!”
I’ve got news for you: I make brachos wherever I eat.
What other mitzvah do people insist that you make a bracha on their item? Like they’re convinced you don’t have your own.
“Hey, you want to shake my lulav? Make an Al Netilas!”
“Come light my menorah! Make a L’hadlik!”
“Hey, we just put in a new bathroom! Want to come to my house and make an Asher Yatzar?”
Largely, I think they want you to compliment their sukkah. But how many different compliments can you give a sukkah? What do you say?
“Hey, you have all the same pictures we have!”
“Ooh, mehadrin straps! I can feel the hiddur!”
It’s like when you get a new house, and everyone who comes to the door, you have to give them a whole tour.
Like, “I don’t care; I just came to read the meter.”
“No, I have to show you every room!”
They have to know what each room is, in case you ever ask them to housesit. You’re showing them rooms they will never in a million years have to know how to get to, even if they come to you for Shabbos. You say, “And this is the basement storage room… We’re gonna add shelves so we can organize it better later.” And they say, “Very nice!” In case they ever come for a Shabbos seudah and they ask, “Can we help with anything?” and you say, “We need more folding chairs. You remember where the basement storage room is, right?”
“No. This was twelve years ago!”
And here it’s the same way. You have this new house that you just moved into, for Sukkos, and you’re all excited: “We have to give you a tour of the whole house!” And it’s one room. They can see the whole thing from the door. And you’re like, “And this is our window… And this is where we unfold the bed at night…” This must be what a home tour was like back in the shtetl.
And if you’re trying to show it to a whole group, they only pile about halfway in, so the whole back half of the group is standing outside the sukkah while you obliviously continue the tour: “And this is the extension we put on this year, and this is our new poster…” and they’re commenting from outside, “Very nice!” Maybe they’re standing on the porch railing and looking down so they can see what you’re talking about.
I have a brother-in-law who, when you invite him into your sukkah, he doesn’t eat. Instead, he unfolds your bed and takes a nap. He’s like, “Wake me up in ten minutes.”
I respect that a lot. He gets something he actually needs (as opposed to the food), he gives the hosts a mitzvah, he has 4 kids at home under 6 so he’s not getting a nap in his own sukkah, and the hosts don’t hover over him and also don’t always invite him back. He’s a genius. But that’s definitely him approving of your sukkah. I think that’s really cool, because you can’t do that during the year, really. Someone is showing you their new house, and they say, “And this is the guest room…” and you say, “Nice!” and you start unbuttoning your shirt.
“Do you have a hanger for this?”
His sukkah hopping is different than everyone else’s sukkah hopping.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
