Thursday, September 27, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
When 6-year-old Zev Spencer-Shapiro asked if his family could sleep outside for a week, his mother said: "Sure."[Left: Zev Spencer-Shapiro and dad Scott. My photo!]
"We'll see how many nights he'll want to do that," laughed mom Kerith Shapiro.
But she agreed to try, for the first time, sleeping under the stars with her husband, son and daughter.
After all, it's the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. And the family plans to sleep in a special booth, or sukkah, made in part from reeds harvested with their own hands at the Teaneck Creek Conservancy.
Sukkot, which started Wednesday night, pays tribute to the nomadic life of the Israelites after the Exodus from Egypt. For 40 years, they wandered in the desert, living in huts and tents. Modern Jews celebrate the holiday by erecting their own sukkah at their temples or in their own back yards.
Families typically eat in the sukkah, and some sleep in the makeshift hut, though spending the night is optional.
The sukkah can be made from all sorts of materials, explained Shapiro, who is the cantor and spiritual leader at Congregation Adas Emuno, a Reform synagogue in Leonia. Her family's sukkah is made of wood and muslin. Their temple's hut was made of steel pipes, bamboo and steel. As long as the structure follows the ancient guidelines, there is a lot of creative freedom.
One important regulation concerns the roof: You must be able to see the sky and stars. In past years, Adas Emuno has used bamboo, and Shapiro has seen pine boughs put to use as pleasant-smelling thatch.
But this year, the roof would be more than a natural, see-through covering.
It would be a double mitzvah.
The Teaneck Creek Conservancy, a 46-acre nature preserve in Overpeck Park, is overpopulated with phragmites, the scientific name for the common reed. On Sunday, Beth Ravit, a member of Adas Emuno, led various Bergen County Jewish groups and families onto the park's trails to cut back the overgrowth and to gather material for the roofs of their sukkahs.
Ravit, a Rutgers University professor and director of an environmental research clinic, has been working on restoring the conservancy for three years. She started a Sukkot reed harvest last year. Many of the same Jewish groups returned this year with newcomers.
Zev and his family were harvesting for the first time.
"Yay, phragmites!" he said as he cut tall reeds and handed them to his father, Scott Spencer.
"I'm his biggest helper," said Spencer with a smile.
The Temple Beth-el group from Closter brought three families of very eager reed-cutters, the most enthusiastic of which were all under 10 years old.
Sarah Bogen, 9, forged into thickets of reeds in her blue soccer uniform. Nathan Hall, 8, claimed to have found "the tallest reed."[Left: Dana Hall and son Nathan. My photo!]
His 6-year-old brother Charlie didn't let the big kids get ahead of him.
The adults were all too glad to introduce their children to the Jewish concept of "tikkun olam," or "repair of the world."
"What we're doing has a ritual purpose," explained cantor Shapiro. "But it's also at the same time helping to take care of the environment."
Sukkot in particular encourages Jews to think about the ephemeral quality of life, Shapiro added.
"Everyone takes for granted that our natural world will al-ways exist," she said. "And the world should have more permanence ... but we're making problems."
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
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