Tag #120701 - Interview #87387 (Rifca Segal)

Sukkot comes after Yom Kippur. We built a sukkah on Sukkot in Sulita. The sukkah was built in the courtyard, everything – the roof as well – was made from reed, it was adorned with rugs and furnished with tables, chairs. It had 3 sides and another one, the one through which you entered, was open. You placed inside the sukkah the nicest things you had in the house. You placed on the walls and ceiling the nicest rugs you had. And you adorned it with all the fruit you had and could buy: with walnuts, apples, pears, grapes. That symbolizes the harvest. You hung fruit on the ceiling and walls. It was very beautiful. The Jews who are very religious sleep there, but my parents didn’t. Nor did my grandmother. You ate for 8 days inside the sukkah, as long as the holiday lasted, even if it rained, it was built with that in mind as well. We served all three meals inside the sukkah. Both breakfast, and lunch, and dinner. The food wasn’t special on this occasion. But we recited a prayer at every meal: the prayer for the bread, for the wine, for the food. There is also a separate ritual, involving the esrig [etrog in Hebrew]. The esrig is an exotic fruit, like a lemon – the exact colour of a lemon, even the size of a lemon –, and it has a leaf growing upwards. And it had to be pointed, for you couldn’t use it if it weren’t pointed. They sent us esrig fruit from Israel [Palestine] before World War II as well. You hold the esrig in your hand, and you recite a prayer, you bless the harvest. There were also some leaves beside it, which looked like corn stalks, which are part of the esrig. When this fruit grows, it has its own leaves, and they look like corn stalks, and you had to hold these leaves in your hand together with the fruit. Throughout the Sukkot, father recited the esrig prayer every day before the meals. This was traditional in Sulita.