Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, Israel

We had walked the stone streets of Old City Jerusalem a dozen times. The confines of the ancient little city were beginning to feel familiar, comfortable even—like we’d lived there much longer than the few weeks we’d been in the country. But a night in the city a few days before a major holiday revealed a side of Jerusalem we had never experienced before.

Following the solemnness of Yom Kippur is Sukkot, one of the most festive weeks in the Jewish religious year. We could feel the difference in the air as the thirty of us made our way through the busy Jerusalem streets on that cool night in mid-September. Simply seeing the glow of Jerusalem after dark was enough to make our first night in the city memorable, but tonight the streets were buzzing with an electricity and an excitement that was almost palpable. The overflowing crowds were mostly religious types dressed in black hats and coats, looking to prepare for the upcoming holy days; the rest was the usual mix of tourists and pilgrims, making for a very crowded night on the street.

We’d been to the Mahane Yehuda market on Jaffa Road before but tonight business was booming. The pair of parallel streets that make up the well-known marketplace was full of shoulder-to-shoulder foot traffic, people from all corners of the earth streaming past endless booths and stands while vendors call out their wares and prices to potential customers. A smorgasbord of smells danced at my nostrils as we passed by shopkeepers selling spices, teas, shawarma, kibab, and baklava. The street lamps, decorative lights; the vibrant colors of clothing, spices, foods; the sounds of street musicians and vendors calling out in Hebrew and Arabic; the smells of numerous foods and sweets—complete sensory overload. Culture was literally in the air.

Despite the overflowing activity in the market, the main attraction was the Sukkah fair—a large tent populated by men with long beards wearing big black hats and coats, furiously buying and selling palm branches accompanied by round yellow fruit. There was more shouting and calling in Hebrew while men meticulously examined each single leaf on the palm branches for purity and straightness. There was almost a sense of urgency in the tent that can only be compared to the holiday rush of Black Friday in the states (minus the stampedes and violence). Except here, the rush was more concerned with correct celebration of the holy day, not the prices on the shelves.

Our Judaism professor explained that the palm branch is called a lulav and  it is tied together in a very specific manner with a myrtle branch and a willow branch; the yellow fruit is known as a citron and is referred to as the etrog in Hebrew. These two pieces of agriculture are a major part of the observance of Sukkot, in accordance with the biblical command in Leviticus 23 to commemorate a time when the Israel dwelt in the wilderness in “booths” or temporary dwellings. The luvav and etrog are used as a wave offering of praise to God. Here in this tent is one of the largest and purest selections of lulav and etrog in all of Israel.

The second half of our class outing took us to Mea Shearim, the largest Jewish Orthodox and Hasidic neighborhood in Israel, and one of the oldest neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Built in 1874, the original walls stood against the skyline of modern Jerusalem as we passed through the gate into another world again. Because of modesty laws and customs we split our class according to gender, the guys leading the way with the girls tailing us. The streets here were overrun with foot-traffic as well—religious men in black, women in wigs or scarves and long skirts pushing strollers, young boys with long side curls wearing small black kippot on their heads. In this part of town, our professor informed us, Yiddish is spoken in normal conversation, with Hebrew being used only for prayer and religious study. Palm braches were being sold in the streets; but these were large, untied palm branches to be used as sukkah building materials.

The sukkah is a temporary dwelling, usually a small hut, that Israel was commanded to build and live in for eight days to remember their dwelling in the wilderness. It is built a certain way as described in Leviticus 23, and Jewish people all over the world eat and sometimes sleep in their sukkot for the eight days of the feast. Throughout Jerusalem the small wooden booths and huts could be seen everywhere during this special week; in Mea Shearim it was no different. Sukkot could be seen on rooftops of houses or in backyards, decorated with lights and palm leaves.

We made our way out of the neighborhood back to the calmer New City Jerusalem streets. The intensity of the observation and celebration of this holiday was something I have never seen before or since. Tradition is clearly visible in the way these people keep their laws, their customs, and their holy days. For these people, tradition is what defines them, what binds them and brings them together. For these people, this is the most wonderful time of the year.