Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! #150

Welcome back to our little meme!

I'm taking a short break this week to share some local window and door news from here in Israel. These past few weeks have been a major holiday season in Judaism, kicking off with Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year. We then rolled into Yom Kippur, and a mere four days later, into our less-worldwide-known harvest festival, called Sukkot. In a few days we'll have Simchat Tora, which is a very fun and festive grande finale to this action-packed season.

But back to Sukkot - as you may recall, we build small huts, and each one is called a Sukka (the word Sukkot is the plural of Sukka). The walls of a sukka can be made of almost anything; I've even seen sukkot that were built out of bales of hay! Talk about good insulation :)

I'd say that the majority of sukkot here in Israel are pre-fab - they're generally metal poles that fit together, with cloth walls surrounding. These are lovely, airy and breezy, perfect for sitting outside and relaxing, just now, when summer is winding down and temperatures are comfy. As an example, here's the very basic sukka that we have here at my office:

The roof of the sukka, as you can see, is a trickier thing - it needs to be made of something natural, like leaves, or bamboo. It can't be solid, and it can't be man-made. When we sit in a sukka, we commemorate the 40 years that the Jews wandered in the desert, without roofs over our heads, completely dependent on God.

Anyway, since my family lives with direct exposure to a valley (as you surely recall) which provides serious winds, we make our sukka out of wood. We just semi-enclose our already existing balcony. And this year, I added another small window! As my brother pointed out, at this rate, our entire sukka will soon be transparent :)

My son, who is now almost a full head taller than me, asked that we not hang too many decorations from the ceiling this year, as he'll just bump into them :)

Thanks for joining me on this quick holiday tour! Please join me again next week, as we continue to see photos from our North American vacation, this past summer.

And now it's your turn! To play along with us here at Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! just post your photo(s) of a window, door, or anything architectural, link here, and sign up in the widget, below. Then go and visit the other participants, that's the best part. Worldwide we are so different, and yet so similar - and it really shows in our architecture!

Have a wonderful, whimsical week, everyone!