DMV rabbis make the seven-day festival accessible to all

A kosher sukkah must be built outside with at least two full walls and a partial third wall covered with raw plant material. The walls must be at least 32 inches high, and the entire structure can’t exceed 30 feet.

But there’s no Jewish law prohibiting the sukkah — a temporary, outdoor hut — from being on wheels.

Area rabbis and Jewish communal groups have an annual tradition of creating Sukkah Mobiles for the harvest holiday of Sukkot. 

Rabbi Yossi Kagan of Chabad of Clarksburg-Germantown built a sukkah on the truck bed of a pickup he rented for the seven days. A canvas banner, which doubles as one of the walls, reads “Welcome Aboard the Sukkah Mobile” and “Happy Sukkot.”

“It’s a mitzvah to eat at the sukkah and shake the lulav and etrog,” the rabbi said. “So we go around with a lulav and etrog, offering the Jewish people we know, people we don’t know, [the opportunity to] shake the lulav and etrog.”

Kagan looks forward to the tradition every year, though it’s his first Sukkot as the founding rabbi of Chabad of Clarksburg-Germantown.

“It’s actually one of the things that Chabad loves to do,” Kagan said. “We always try to make Judaism as easy and accessible to people [as possible].”

His Sukkah Mobile made stops around Clarksburg and Germantown.

“We drive around the neighborhood [and] give that experience to people who might not be able to make it out of the house,” Kagan said. “For families with young children, it’s hard for them to come out, so we give them that experience of a sukkah at their door.”

For this reason, Rabbi Yechezkiel Deitsch of Chabad Tysons Jewish Center invited community members to call him to request a visit from the Sukkah Mobile.

Deitsch drove the Sukkah Mobile around the Tysons area, making stops at senior living facilities and rehabilitation centers. “They are so excited to see us,” the rabbi said of the “few” Jewish residents of these facilities.

Kids in the neighborhood are no exception.

“They love it,” Deitsch said. “They get to have some treats in the sukkah, and who doesn’t like treats?”

Deitsch said he gave out cookies and candy and gives visitors a chance to make a blessing over the lulav and etrog.

While it’s largely a tradition embodied by Chabad chapters, others can operate a Sukkah Mobile too.

Rabbi Anna Wolfe of the Den Collective initially wanted to build a sukkah in the courtyard of her Adams Morgan condominium building. But the building association said that wasn’t allowed in a shared space.

So Wolfe and her husband, Sam, rented a red pickup truck and built a sukkah on the back. They hosted community members in Adams Morgan on the second day of Sukkot, then, later in the week, popped up at Union Market and Old Town Alexandria.

“I was able to bring the sukkah to different places in the D.C. area and also into NoVa,” Wolfe said.

The flexibility of having a moving sukkah meant that some members of the Jewish community could celebrate Sukkot who otherwise might not have had the time.

“One woman specifically said that her work has just been really busy lately, and she wasn’t going to be able to make it to a sukkah,” Wolfe recalled. “And when she saw that we were going to be bringing the sukkah to her area, she signed up right away and was so happy.”

Bringing people in isn’t just an aim of the Den’s, but a facet of the holiday, Wolfe said.

“There’s an idea that on Sukkot, you welcome in ushpizin, like holy guests,” she explained.

Jewish tradition is to welcome these matriarchs and patriarchs into the sukkah, as well as those who don’t have a place for Sukkot. 

“There’s this amazing passage in the Zohar that says if you don’t invite in people who don’t have a sukkah to sit in, all of the honored guests get up and leave because it’s not a sukkah that’s worthy,” Wolfe said. “So it’s a big focus of welcoming people in and making the sukkah accessible.”

She emphasized the openness of the sukkah.

“What could be more open than being able to drive around and literally move the sukkah from location to location, state to state?” Wolfe asked.

The Sukkah Mobile wasn’t the Den’s original plan, according to Rabbi Aderet Drucker. 

“Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention,” said Drucker, the Den’s executive director and community rabbi, who is considering making this an annual Sukkot staple.

Navigating through the streets of D.C. proved difficult with a lifted Ram 1500 topped with a six-foot structure in the truck bed. Passersby stopped to say, “Chag Sameach!” or ask, “What is this?”

“We were a sight to be seen,” Wolfe said.

Of the “plenty of people” who stopped by the Old Town Alexandria pop-up, one woman used FaceTime to show her dad the Sukkah Mobile. Another parked his bike outside to eat challah with the small group gathered inside.

“I think people are excited to see something that reminds them of home,” Wolfe said. “I have such warm memories of being a little kid in a sukkah, so I imagine that when people see one in a place they don’t expect, it’s really exciting.”

The response from outside the Den community has been positive as well.

“Neighbors keep stopping by to say how happy they are to see it, and people who’ve never heard of Sukkot have been coming up and chatting with us,” Wolfe wrote in a statement to Washington Jewish Week. “It’s been a really fun way to meet our Adams Morgan neighbors and connect with more Jewish community in our area.”

zbell@midatlanticmedia.com