Anatomy of the Sukkah by Andrea Hodos

On any given shabbat or holiday, you will find me in shul in the morning -- either leading services or davenning (praying) along with the shaliach tzibbur (prayer leader).  The second day of sukkot is an exception, though.  Every morning during sukkot, the sukkah calls to me:  I love having some solitary time there, between last night's dishes and before it's packed, once again, with friends and family for lunch.  On the second day of sukkot I often give in to that call, stay home, and daven there by myself, with a hot cup of coffee or a cold orange juice -- depending upon the weather.
 
One sukkot, just after completing my Pilates training, I sat with my coffee in the sukkah and opened my siddur to daven.  I found myself, though, more compelled toward Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy.  Putting my siddur aside, I opened it to the section on the muscles, bones and tendons of the shoulder and hip.  In my review, I was struck, once again, by the specific and intricate shapes of the bones -- and by the ways the muscles wrap and weave around one another, finally inserting themselves into these bony structures  -- in ways that allow us to MOVE.  As I sat and flipped from page to page, sussing out how connections between muscles and bones result in particular motions, a sense of awe welled up in me.  I found myself putting down my anatomy book, picking up my siddur once again, and heading straight toward the beginning of the morning prayers:
 
Asher Yatzar - Blessed are you, God, Ruler of the World, who has fashioned us with your wisdom, and created within us many openings and many hollows . . .
 
The structure of the body has rules: the head of the femur (the thigh bone) fits snugly into the acetabulum (hip socket) to help us maintain stability as we walk, stand and make our way through the world; the shoulder blades are not attached to the rest of the skeleton at our backs, but only at the very top of the ribcage via the collarbone; as a result, the shoulder blades can "float" up, down, and around the back of the ribcage, allowing us to reach out into the world in all directions. To work, the body must find the right balance of stability and mobility.  Too much stability, we get stuck; too much mobility and we have nothing to hold us up. And while there are rules the body must abide by to achieve this balance, there is such a wide variety of shapes and sizes that work -- so many different ways shoulders and hips, spines and legs, can -- and do -- fit together to make a human being who inhabits the world.
 
The structure of the sukkah has very specific rules as well.  There are more laws regarding the status of a sukkah than almost anything else in Jewish law.   A sukkah must have at least three sides.  Its roof must be made with natural plant material; you must be able to see through it to the sky, but its shaded part must be greater than its unshaded part.  The walls may be made out of any material as long as they don't fall down when the wind blows.  A sukkah must be an impermanent structure: even if its walls are permanent, the roof must be put up afresh every year.  A sukkah, it seems, like a body, is about balancing stability and mobility.  It is stabile, centered, grounded -- and fragile at the same time, made with one set of rules, but in as many ways as one can imagine.
 
And, like a body, the sukkah forms and shapes the life that will inhabit it.  It is not the body by itself, the sukkah by itself, that matters, but rather what happens when the body is inhabited and animated by the soul - when the sukkah is inhabited and animated by family and guests -- that's when the real journey begins.
 
So . . . with all these similarities in mind, I have made it my annual custom to spend the morning of the the second day of sukkot sitting in the sukkah , coffee cup, siddur and anatomy book in hand, contemplating and celebrating, both figuratively - and literally - how to move forward.
 
On Yom Kippur we transcend our bodies -- fasting, wearing white -- simultaneously shroud and angel's garb.  It is no accident that four days later, we come to sukkot -- the complete embodiment of our presence in the world. The dual commandments of the holiday are to sit in the sukkah AND to be happy; through these commandments we are reminded that our unique and well-designed bodies carry us through our lives, allow us to celebrate and reach this time.  The ritual of Ushpizin (inviting ancestral guests into the sukkah) reminds us that stability -- having a place we come from, in which we are grounded -- is important.  But as we look past the openings in our permeable walls, and through the roof to the stars or sun, we get an equally important reminder that we are always on a journey, reaching out, multi-directionally, into the world.   

This year may we inhabit our sukkot in celebration, and may our bodies carry us joyfully forward, out into the world, to do the service we are intended to do.
 
Andrea Hodos, director of Moving Torah, is a performance artist and educator working the Jewish and interfaith communities - in Los Angeles and nationally.  She is also a Pilates trainer and owner of Moving Body Pilates (http://movingbodypilates.com/).  In collaboration with the Invertigo Dance Theatre, she has developed the Dancing Through Parkinson's (http://www.invertigodance.org/dancingthroughpd) initiative in Los Angeles.  Andrea is one of the founding members of the Shtibl Minyan (http://www.shtibl.com/).