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Sukkah: The Jewish Home for Sukkot (Judaica)
When the holiday season or the "Sukkot" arrives, the permanent construction takes a back seat and most people of the Jewish faith are literally required to construct and to move into for stay in a "Sukkah".
This is not out of any urge to rough it out or to live outdoors, but is in line with the terms stated in the Torah, calling for all persons of the Jewish faith to spend the Sukkot holidays in a temporary hut whose "minimum" size is literally to accommodate an adult in a sitting posture.
And the walls of this temporary construction are also not defined. One can have proper four walls with a door in one. Or just two walls with an "imagined" third having just three plus inches from the floor with a "symbolic door".
The decorated Sukkot (pronounced as Sue-Coat) huts symbolize the hardship of God, be it the struggle to house the people in temporary shelters while taking them out from Egypt, or the clouds that shielded the people during their forty-year hard trek through the desert of Sinai.
For either reason, the objective of residing in a Sukkot is to understand the hardship, and each generation is required to undergo this "holiday" as a reminder of the huge struggle of their forefathers, and they in turn to pass it on to the generation next.
Today however, the Sukkot or even the temporary huts are not meant to undergo any form of "suffering", and only to serve as a reminder as well as to enjoy the holiday. Though the minimum size is specified, the option to decorate the hut is entirely with the individuals. And there is no restriction on the maximum size, for as in the past, it is meant to accommodate and provide shade to as many as possible.
Even the walls do not have any mandatory material restriction or suggestion and one is free to use their own imagination. The only condition being that a strong gust of wind must not bring down the Sukkot in any Sukkah.
The Sukkot is also known as the "Feast of Tabernacles". Having "suffered" so much right from Biblical times, the Israelis as referred originally and as a reference given to the Jewish people residents of Israel, do make it a point to preserve most of their hard learning by example.
The Sukkot is just one small example of the means of spending a "holiday", and passing a real message down the generation by literally "living" it.
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