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Coming alongside a New York City push to license pedicab operators, the initiative of a Jewish teenager in Brooklyn has given pedestrians and motorists an interesting site: a mobile bamboo-topped latticework hut affixed to a rickshaw.Levi Duchman, a 16-year-old Chabad-Lubavitch yeshiva student from Crown Heights, was out pedaling the contraption Monday around Grand Army Plaza, publicizing the Jewish holiday of Sukkot like never before. According to Duchman, the handmade booth has been getting quite a reaction from New Yorkers, who have likely never seen a sukkah the walled temporary huts that Jews eat in during the seven-day holiday transported in such a way.People are really getting excited, said Duchman, whose father directs Colel Chabad, a social-services organization founded in 1788 by the first Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, and whose brother runs the Chabad House on Roosevelt Island. Everybody is taking out their phone and taking pictures.For decades now, Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidim, emissaries and rabbinical students have taken mobile sukkahs usually converted pickup trucks through the streets of cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Rome and Paris. Duchman believes, however, that his contraption is unique.I woke up Friday morning with this idea, he said Tuesday before taking his younger brother and heading out for Manhattan. I asked all the pedicab drivers where I could get one, and then went to the store and told them what I wanted to do.As he makes the rounds, Duchman invites Jewish men, women and children to make a special blessing on the Four Species a combination of palm branch, willow twigs, myrtle branches and citron that are held together each day of Sukkot and to eat a snack inside the sukkah. The hard part, he revealed, is the driving.Pedaling made me tired a bit, he said after his first day.While the city intends for all pedicab operators to be licensed by Nov. 20, Duchman said that his vehicle is decidedly temporary. After the holiday, he pointed out, sukkahs everywhere will be taken down and packed away for next year.Anyways, he added, all of the police officers are giving us nice waves.(www.chabad.org/1003441)
Sukkot
The festival of Sukkot
Sukkot in a NutshellFor forty years, as our ancestors traversed the Sinai Desert prior to their entry into the Holy Land, miraculous "clouds of glory" surrounded and hovered over them, shielding them from the dangers and discomforts of the desert. Ever since, we remember G-d's kindness and reaffirm our trust in His providence by dwelling in a sukkah--a hut of temporary construction with a roof covering of branches--for the duration of the Sukkot festival (Tishrei 15-21). For seven days and nights, we eat all our meals in the sukkah and otherwise regard it as our home.Another Sukkot observance is the taking of the Four Kinds: an etrog (citron), a lulav (palm frond), three hadassim (myrtle twigs) and two aravot (willow twigs). On each day of the festival (excepting Shabbat), we take the Four Kinds, recite a blessing over them, bring them together in our hands and wave them in all six directions: right, left, forward, up, down and backward. The Midrash tells us that the Four Kinds represent the various types and personalities that comprise the community of Israel, whose intrinsic unity we emphasize on Sukkot.Sukkot is also called The Time of Our Joy; indeed, a special joy pervades the festival. Nightly Water-Drawing Celebrations, reminiscent of the evening-to-dawn festivities held in the Holy Temple in preparation for the drawing of water for use in the festival service, fill the synagogues and streets with song, music and dance until the wee hours of the morning.The seventh day of Sukkot is called Hoshaana Rabbah ("Great Salvation") and closes the period of Divine judgment begun on Rosh Hashanah. A special observance is the Aravah--the taking of a bundle of willow branches.
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