‘Sukkot on Wheels’: Mat-Su Jewish Center takes week long holiday on the road, offering socially distant solutions for locals wishing to celebrate

PALMER — The Mat-Su Jewish Center found a creative solution to include as many locals as possible during Sukkot, a sacred, week-long holiday celebrated outdoors inside man made huts called sukkots. On top of offering appointments to visit their onsite sukkot, they’re also driving across the Valley in a pickup truck with a mobile sukkot in the bed, a “sukkot on wheels.”

“This year we are doing a traveling sukkot, a sukkot on wheels,” Rabbi Mendy Greenberg said.

Greenberg is spearheading the socially distant campaign to reach as many people in the Jewish community and anyone else interested in participating in Sukkot. He said that he’s excited to include the whole Valley throughout the week in their Sukkot festivities.

“This holiday is really all about inclusion; because we’re all created from the same creator,” Greenberg said.

The center is offering appointments to visit their sukkot at the center while giving the option for locals staying home due to COVID-19.

“There’s always people who for whatever reason can’t get out there,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg said they will be going door to door to any and all who wish to partake. He said they’ll come with all the ceremonial items in addition to an assortment of holiday treats.

“This way, if someone is uncomfortable coming to the sukkot at the Jewish Center, Sukkot will be brought to your door,” Greenberg said. “Well make the sukkot come to you.”

Sukkot, commonly referred to as the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Booths, honors the nomadic lives Jewish ancestors lived, protected by God from the harsh elements in the desert on their way to the Promised Land.

For a full week, Jewish people across the world pay homage to their faith by spending time within minimal huts engaging in prayer and other rituals honoring their connection to God while giving thanks for His lasting protection.

“He protects us,” Greenberg said. “Every challenge is supposed to help us grow and get better.”

The onsite and mobile sukkots will feature an array of traditional items practiced by Jewish people for generations, including branches made from palm, myrtle, and willow; as well as citron fruit. Greenberg said they shipped in these special items from New York, tracing back to places like Italy and Egypt.

“Taste represents the idea of intellect. Just like you know, you are what you eat… You read what you understand, what you internalize becomes who you are. From a Jewish Perspective, when someone’s involved in the study of God’s wisdom… represents the idea of taste. Smell is the idea of good deeds… Good deeds, good actions represent a good smell,” Greenberg said.

Mendy explained that Sukkot is a light hearted fall festival that follows a more somber holiday, Rosh Hashanah, the day of judgement, believing that God balances a person’s deeds over the last year, and decides their fate for the next year. He said Sukkot is also called the “Season of Our Joy” and serves a time for reflection on one’s deeds while looking forward to the coming year.

“We’re celebrating the fact that we’re confident God is gonna give us a good year. We’re celebrating that good judgement,” Greenberg said.

The traveling sukkot will be making its way across the Valley for the remainder of Sukkot which wraps up this Friday. Greenberg said to keep an eye out for it and post pictures of it on Facebook if they come across it.

For more information, call 907-350-1787 or visit matsujewishcenter.org.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com