Thursday, September 23, 2021

Alarmed by COVID spike, Orthodox move to make the sukkah safer

 https://forward.com/news/455434/orthodox-alarmed-by-covid-spike-seeing-risks-in-sukkah-normally-a-symbol/

A sukkah is something of a paradox.

It’s a symbol of safety. In prayer, the word is literally translated as shelter — often, a shelter of God’s peace, spread over the supplicant.

Yet its occupants are also not supposed to feel too safe. The roof of a sukkah must be sparse enough to see the stars, and it must be a temporary structure. In this way, it’s a reminder of the fragility of life, and the human need to rely on the Almighty.

Indeed, a sukkah usually has such an airy feel that Orthodox Jews thinking about sitting in one during a pandemic might have reasonably thought that it would be safer than sitting in synagogue. But they would have been wrong.

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