Sukkot always seems to arrive unexpectedly. We spend weeks preparing for Passover. The High Holidays have an entire preliminary month enabling us to review our past deeds and make resolutions for the future. Chanukah and Purim are much-awaited oases during the long winter months.
But Sukkot offers us no such luxury. It follows only days after Yom Kippur. Hardly recovered from the fast, we immediately find ourselves in a whirlwind of activity – building the Sukkah, shopping for the Four Species, cooking, cleaning, decorating, etc. We are given virtually no time to mentally prepare ourselves for the transition. We spend an exhausted few days in preparation, and then suddenly it begins.
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