Naperville North and Naperville Central welcomed CTeen of Naperville to their campuses this week to help celebrate The Jewish Festival of Sukkot.
About Sukkot
“We’re at Naperville Central High School. We’re here to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot. It’s a seven-day holiday, Jewish holiday, all about joy and gathering,” said Rabbi Tzvi Tornek.
The festival takes place around the world from October 9 to October 16 in specially built huts called sukkahs where people connect with others.
Sukkahs
“So, it’s a temporary structure. It’s a hut and it has natural vegetation as roof, and it symbolizes the fragility of life, and we leave our permanent structures. We leave our security, what we’ve built up for ourselves, and we go into this temporary structure, and we feel the wind, we feel the elements, and it diminishes our ego, gives us an ability to really feel connected to others and unity, and it symbolizes God’s protection,” said Tornek.
Students in CTeen helped build the sukkah, then got the chance to share certain traditions of the holiday with other students who might not be familiar with it during lunchtime.
Special Traditions
“So, there’s a part of the tradition of Sukkot is to take four different types of plants and put them together and they each symbolize a different aspect, a different personality type. We put them together to show that. You know, some have advantages and disadvantages, but altogether that’s when they’re a whole, that’s when we’re complete,” said Tornek.
This is the first time that sukkahs have been made available at the Naperville high schools.
“It’s unbelievable. I mean, the response has been tremendously positive from Jewish students, non-Jewish students. It’s just a beautiful cultural thing to bring the exposure to the high schools,” said Tornerk.
Naperville News 17’s Anthony Yench reports.
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