The Sukkah, The Sukkah – Ziba Rabinovitch

Things were going very poorly for Saadia in the Arabic shtetl in Yemen. Truthfully, he was not the only one for whom things were going badly in the town. Many Jews lived there. All of them were master jewelers in making ear-rings, nose-rings, and thin, pierced coins, which the Arabs wore like beads, threaded onto thick threads around their necks.

Masters of working silver and gold, they were more than customers. It’s no wonder that every one of the Yemeni Jews used to cry westward, or on Shabbes after havdalah, over their bitter fate. The last Shabbes-songs were very sad back then.

“Ay, if only it were shabbes over the world!” – so thought the Jews of the Arabic shtetl in Yemen. It was going badly for all of them, but for Saadia, it appeared to be going worse than for everyone. And so, Saadia decided to move to a distant Arabic village, where there were very few Jews, few gold and silver workers, so it would be easier to make a living.

Soon, Saadia found himself and his belongings moved to a new place. But this village had just one big problem. Each Jew who lived there was afraid of the Arabs. They advised Saadia, “keep your eyes peeled,” of the Arabic neighbours, or in other words, hide everything from them, so they had their minyan in a cellar. And they didn’t sing aloud any psalms or praise songs, like he was used to doing…

Saadia followed his new Jewish neighbours, kept his voice down while reciting the prayers, and kept his voice down while he prayed in the cellar-shul. Once, he felt as though his voice was being strangled, because he so badly wanted to sing in a loud voice and praise the Almighty for his good earnings in this new place.

2.

But what could he do? God would have to fill his heart in his quiet prayer in the cellar. Saadia observed Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur in the most silent manner, but after Yom Kippur, he decided he must build a sukkah, whether his Jewish neighbours wanted him to or not! Sukkos without a Sukkah? Whoever heard of such a thing… a Jew without a sukkah? A sukkah that was pleasing to the eyes? Who doesn’t want that, to look at that, and to come on in and sit in there! But a shtetl must have at least one sukkah! Saadia decided to set up a sukkah all on his own, if others had such fear.

Saadia took to the sukkah first thing in the morning after Yom Kippur. He worked hard, but eventually, he put up a sukkah which could not have been any more beautiful. He hung it with all kinds of tapestry and fruits from Yemen and Erets Yisroel, of all colours. It appeared that the colours enchanted even the sun, which caught a look through the thatch of the roof, and gave a smile, as if to say: “Not bad Saadia! Truly, not bad!” Saadia’s heart was overfilled with joy. If they would let him, he would have sung out, so that even the Arab neighbours would fill the need to sing with him! But to go sing, they said to him, “No.” – they would not allow it!

Saadia quietly waited for the yontiff, when he would not just sit in the sukkah, but sleep in it too…

3.

But when all was nice and ready for the sweet yontiff, the broke out a sandstorm – clouds of sand above, waves of sand below. The mouth and nostrils would fill with sand, and the eyes would be forced shut, and it seemed like sand-spirals spun over the little village, and spun about and dragged away everything that weighed less than a house…

“The sukkah… the sukkah…” groaned Saadia, and he cried himself to bed.

A terrifying night. A long night. The longest that Saadia had every lived through… but in the day, after he had recited all of the chapters of the Psalms, which he knew by heart, again and again, did he doze off. Before he knew it, the sun was already shining through his window.

“The sukkah!” Was his very first thought, and he ran out with fear in his heart, to see the wreckage the storm had caused.

Maybe the other jews were right when they told him not to make a sukkah? Don’t take your eyes off your neighbours…

Thinking this, Saadia left his house. How befuddled he became as he saw a group of people, Jews and Arabs, standing around the sukkah, and the sukkah… had something happened to it? Like in a dream, Saadia saw that the sukkah stood as pristine as it had before the storm. Everything as it was.

“Min allah! Min allah!” Said the Arabs to him, and pointed to the leaves which sat nice and neat on the roof of the sukkah, and through which there shone beams of light from the sun. “Min allah!” Everyone repeated, and they looked at Saadia with respect and adoration…

And he stood and looked at his sukkah which had survived the terrifying khamseen, and his heart was filled with faith, and he sang out to God…

Later, his neighbours would always say to him, “Why aren’t you speaking, Saadaia? God loves you so much and you say nothing?”

But Saadia, from then on, said nothing. He could never speak again, and still cannot, to this day. He can only sing. And Saadia sings so, that the entire village resounds with his praise to God…